A Life Changing Dream
by Hybrid1954
Summary: After having a dream, the life of a soldier changes entirely when he finds himself passing a certain weakening point of the Great Hakurei Barrier when he is doing his routine training with his fellow soldier. What will happen to him afterwards will make him serve a witch from Makai, observed by a fairy, and own a familiar. And some twist on his incoming fate.
1. Prologue

Author's note : Hello, readers! Welcome to my first story that I make! (Even if i posted it in the description.)

First of all, thanks for showing interest in this story. I have been thinking of posting a story in this site, but never got the chance (More like guts) to do it, so once again, thanks for showing interest in this story!

Secondly, I have some habits in writing stories, so I'm going to try to fix it, but if I can't, well, just get along with it.

Lastly,...Well, there's not much I want to say other than that, since I don't have anything particular to say, so let's just get on with the story.

**Disclaimer : Anything that had to do with Touhou belongs to ZUN. I do not own it.**

* * *

A soldier opened his eyes weakly as he wakes up, and was surprised that he was now facing the ground. The first thing that came into his mind was that someone pushed him out from his bunk, or he falls during his sleep, but he quickly gave up on both ideas as he immediately feels tired, much to his confusion, and he also felt as if there's something different inside his mind, but he passed it out as if he was feeling things.

The soldier quickly got back up, using his hands as a support, and looked to his front, and what he saw confused him, and as weird as his mind is feeling right now, both rage and anger. In front of him was several girls and woman, all appeared to be talking quietly with each other, and he's confused why is there so many people in front of him, or rather, where's the tent he has been sleeping upon for several weeks.

Must be a dream, The soldier thought. A really weird one.

He looked to his back in case there's more person around him, and he is right. A teenage girl was leaning her back towards the tree in a carefree manner, as if watching the whole ordeal in amusement. And then, he realized something. The girl has white, angelic wings on her back.

He immediately shot his view back at the people in front of him, and immediately realized that every single girl and woman in front of him had several out of ordinary things around them. One of them had bat wings on her back, while the other girl in front of her had a metallic looking stick with several crystals hanging to it, much to his confused and anger, in which the latter was not the soldiers' thought.

He scanned his front entirely towards the girl and woman, and all of them had something totally off, be it just from the feeling he had, or they had some sort of things that clearly tells him that he knows for sure that was supposedly not meant to be there. But his scan narrowed him into three people that were in his view lane, and this makes him boil in rage and anger, much to his confusion.

Weird, I keep raging and getting angrier by each passing minute, but I'm not sure why… The soldier thought, and examined the three even further.

One of the tree people was a teenage girl, looking at him with a grin as she throws a black ball the size of a tennis ball towards the air, and catches it again as it falls down, before throwing it up again, repeating the cycle all over again. The girl has a really long blond hair and red eyes, and was wearing a black dress with red wave pattern around its outline, and she was wearing a caplet tied together by a red ribbon and a pointed hat with another red ribbon on one side, all except the ribbon had the same color and pattern, and was also wearing black shoes. The girl also had a pair of black wings on her back, and just looking at the girl was more than enough to make his rage boiling, even if he was still confused why.

The second was also a teenage girl, but he was pretty sure that other than her pose, she was nothing out of the ordinary. Well, save from the girl had a stick with glowing inscription on it, that is. The girl has blue eyes and green hair that is longer on the right side, and was wearing a dark blue, black and white dress with gold decorations, also a dark and blue hat with another gold emblem in front, and some red and white bow that somehow balanced equally, and wears a black shoe with red bow on them. This one looks at him as if showing pity for him, and looking at her was making her angrier by each passing second.

The third one, however, was a woman who looked like around her twentieth or thirteenth, but if a person doesn't know her, then no one would that she actually has lived longer than her looks. The woman has dark golden eye, long, golden colored hair, wearing a pink mob cap, and wears a purple tabarb with trigrams over a western-styled dress, and was holding a long parasol with her, as her other hand was busy inside a gap. This, of course, makes him even more confused, but at the same time, setting both of his rage and anger even further, and after examining the three female, something gnawed inside his mind.

His sense of fear.

This confuses the confused soldier even more, but he just can't find the reason why he is feeling the three emotions that he kept feeling was there. And then, he suddenly coughed. He covered his mouth using his hand, but his eyes widen as blood also rushed out with each cough.

"I've put the antidote inside his stomach, and it looked like it was starting to take effect already." The woman said as she pulled her hand from the gap. "It's your turn now."

A woman with a scythe nodded, and immediately walked towards him. He looked at the girl as he kept on coughing, before a black ball suddenly flew to her direction. The girl managed to dodge the ball, however. Right after that, another ball was launched towards her, but this time, she dodged it again by lunging forward, and stopped in front of him.

"Well, this is the end of your borrowed time of life," She said, putting her scythe on the back of his neck. "I assume you allowed me this, right?"

"You can go ahead, I didn't actually need him anyway." The girl with white wing replied coldly, and then flew somewhere the soldier doesn't know.

"Well, you're certainly one hell of a person to be dealt with," The woman said, lifting her scythe.

"Kotomi Horikawa."

SLASH!

* * *

"AAAAAAAAH!" The soldier, Kotomi, screamed as he wakes up from his dream, and of course, shocking a soldier in the room, if a tent can be called a room, that is.

"Lieutenant! What happened?!" A soldier immediately asked, his voice have thick American accent.

"*Pant* *Pant* Weird, horrible nightmare…" Kotomi answered. "I don't actually even have the slightest idea what I just dreamed earlier…"

"It's rare seeing you like this, sir." The soldier commented.

"Well, I wouldn't scream if I didn't get decapitated in my dream."

"Decapitated, sir?" The soldier asked, skeptical.

"Yeah, decapitated," Kotomi said again. "By a woman wielding a scythe. Didn't even have the slightest idea on how I ever dreamt that…"

"Well, that was certainly weird." The soldier said, holding his chin. "Maybe it's some sort of warning?"

"Seeing some dreams are, albeit the chance is as good as ever destroying a tank with a knife from the outside, the vision of one's future, then I'm going to have some hectic future waiting for me." Kotomi shivered after saying that. "Whatever the hell have I do to deserve that… dream?"

"You still need to learn to speak better English, sir."

"Like I care, at least I'm still understandable. You don't want me speaking Japanese, do you?"

"Uh… no, sir."

"Oh, did I tell you there's more people in the dream?"

"No, sir."

"Well, most of them are female, but almost every single one of them had-" His words are interrupted by a warning siren.

"Well, save the story for later, sir. Looks like it's time to kick other division's butt." The soldier said while looking towards a megaphone placed at a corner of the tent. "We're going to kick their ass like usual, right?"

"Just because we win most of the time doesn't mean that we're going to do the same each time." Kotomi reminded him. "And besides, I did the job most of the time by distracting them."

"*Snicker* You're right. Well, better get ready."

With a nod, Kotomi followed the soldier out of their tent, going towards a small clearing.

* * *

It's not often for Ran Yakumo, the nine tailed fox shikigami to look at her master's rather worried face. Usually something really is concerning her, or she's just over thinking something, which is really has a slim chance of happening. "May I ask what's bothering you, master?" Ran asked, her voice sounding worried.

"Well, winter's coming tomorrow, but the barrier is weakening at some point." Ran's master, Yukari Yakumo, answered. "It might be weak, but it keeps spreading with each passing second, and I fear it will become larger if left unchecked and not repaired. Ran, go and fix it for me."

"As you say, master." Ran bowed, before she sets off to find the weakening points.

"Let's just hope that humans from the outside world didn't happen to pass from one of the weak points." Ran hoped inside her mind.

But things will not go how she hoped to happen…

* * *

After Kotomi and the soldier gets to the site, the former started to explain rules and what-to-dos he has been telling his team for several weeks, since they're in a training camp with some more countries to train themselves.

"Everyone got it?" Kotomi asked after finishing his explanation.

"Yes, sir!" A group of soldiers replied all at the same time.

"Remember, don't forget to bring live ammos in case the time is much longer than proceeded. Who knows how long we will be there." Kotomi reminded them.

"That's just because you have a bad sense of direction," A soldier muttered under his breath.

"I heard that, donkey." Kotomi said, unpleased with what the soldier just said about him. His hearing is much better than most people, so he can still hear his sound very clearly, even if the soldier muttered it as lowly as possible, and had quite a distance from him.

"Sorry, sir,"

"*Sigh* Next time, try not to say that again." Kotomi knows that his sense of direction is bad, but he doesn't like it when people pointed it out.

"Sir, can I use my grenade launcher?" A soldier asked suddenly.

Kotomi sighed again. Even after he explained the rules, there are just some people that keep asking him if they can use their personal weapon. "If you want to burn the forest and kill the other members, sure, go ahead."

The soldier didn't ask again, since he has expected that his question will more or less be answered like that.

"Okay, let's get ready, soldier. Remember, use rubber bullets to take them down, and make sure you keep the live bullets somewhere safe."

Right after he said that, the soldiers immediately went to different parts around the open field, taking ammunitions, several bombs, kevlars, weapons, and some other stuff they think will be necessary for the next battle training. Kotomi, however, always brings in heavy payload with him.

He first went to take some protective gears, which always includes pads for joints, shoulder, and a rather heavily pocketed kevlar vest. Next, he makes his way to the weapons area, and always takes three weapons with him. One is a heavily modified AUG A3 for himself, another one is a P90, heavily modified too, and lastly, a handgun. And he also takes quite a lot of ammunitions for each weapon, with a minimum set of five, and a maximum of ten for each gun.

If that's still not heavy enough, considering he needs to be sneaky and agile to be the teams distraction, he also takes a maximum of five for different kinds of bombs, each consisting of five flash bangs, five smoke bombs, and three grenades. His weapon of choice for close quarter engagement was also out of the ordinary. If most soldier only had knifes, he adds a sword to his arsenal. He also brings quite a lot of equipments to help him with his "Survival chance", since he gets lost quite often.

Even with all the stuff he brings with him, he never seems to looks as if someone bringing a big payload, and is still pretty agile enough to dodge incoming bullets. His fellow soldiers always wonders why, but decided to just go along with it.

With each of the soldier got what they needed, they went back to the gathering spot.

"Okay, do some last minutes check, the siren should be off any second."

Right after Kotomi said it, the siren went off, signaling the start of the training. Kotomi and his team moved into the forest in front of them, and went into cover, waiting for any team that will be unlucky enough to pass right in front of them.

* * *

Author's note : Well, I hope you like what you read here.

Reviews and critics are welcomed, since they can help me with my writing capabilities.

Next Chapter : From the danger zone, into the safe zone.

I'll try to update it as soon as I can, but I can't guarantee it, since I have a massive amount of laziness, gets writers block rather often, and lastly, I'm nearing my finals for my school.


	2. From the danger zone, into the safe zone

Author's note : In this chapter, most of it was still in conversation mode, but I tried giving it some fighting scenes.

But due to my restrained idea (and that i can't make a good fighting scene with only fistfight), and the fact that I'm doing this in the middle of finals doesn't give me a good scene and state of mind to write it.

But nevertheless, here's the second chapter!

* * *

"You guys still remember the plans, right?" Kotomi asked, whispering as slow as possible through his intercom.

"Don't worry sir, we still remember." An answer came from one of the soldier. "Wait for the enemy to be seen, let them hit the trap, and then barrage them."

Nodding, Kotomi asked again, "And the most important thing of the plan?"

"Always expect the unexpected, sir."

"Good, now stay quiet, and keep low." With that, he ended the intercom chat.

It was pretty certain that amongst all the six groups that are present in the training site, Kotomi's the best at stealth, at least in forest areas. The plan was pretty simple, like they just talked earlier, but the number and type of the shooter and kinds of trap was never the same. Once, he had to set half the team to snipe everyone, while he was doing chaos almost the entire time, randomly shooting that hoped to hit, and certainly, making everyone hit the bushes instead of him, and of course, his soldiers.

Or at one time, he was throwing flash bangs everywhere, blinding and disorienting his "enemies" to such an extent that they can't even see or hear that they're being shot at. The only indication was a "BEEP!" sound each time a soldier takes enough hit to make them "Die", after experiencing some pain in their bodies, that is.

He never stays with the same tactic all over again, because, it will ruin the surprise element. He knows that if one can make full use of the surprise element during a war, it will almost be certain who're the winner of the war are. But that doesn't stop him from just doing simple planning, though. He also told his soldier that they always have to expect the unexpected, and of course, that means they should be ready for any change of plans.

I hope there are no surprises now, Kotomi thought as he heard faint rustling of bushes.

The rustling was gradually getting louder with each passing time, before a group of soldier, with a symbol written SOC in their left side of the kevlar. And most other team does have a symbol like that, claiming from their respective country and special forces name, but that's not how Kotomi's team was like, since his team is practically all from America, while he himself is the only one from the outside, Japan, to be exact, which is exactly the country where they are now. And because of his teams' stealth, his team had been called "Ninja" instead, further solidified when their kevlar received the symbol NIN the next day they got their nickname. But he doesn't care, thought, at least his team now has a name, rather than his team being named after him.

"Well, ain't lucky for them to run straight to our jaws eh, sir?" One soldier said from is intercom.

"Quiet, you." Kotomi snarled as low as possible. "They're still a threat, so be on guard."

The soldier answered with a faint snicker, before the snicker went off completely. Kotomi sighed, and then started eavesdropping.

"Seriously, why do we have to be doing this instead?" A soldier from the SOC team grumbled, warily looking to his surroundings. "We want to be the one that kicks their asses too."

"You and I both know that we're not exactly the best of the bunch, and that they have that guy mostly to their side, you can be damn certain we'll lose to them." Another one replied grumpily, which this one had a beret instead of a helmet, so it was presumed he was the leader of the team.

"I know, I know." The other soldier waved his hand in a dismissive manner. "Just the fact that we have to be playing bait was not cool."

Bait? That means they're going to surround us after we open fire to them. Kotomi deduced after eavesdropping.

Not wanting to take the risk of encirclement, he reached his intercom and said, "Look, when you open fire, make sure do a kill shot, seems like they're ganging on us."

"Ganging? You mean the rest of them are going to encircle us if we open fire for too long?"

"I don't see why not, mister obvious." Kotomi rolled his eyes. "Of course it is, so make sure you do a kill shot, and then moved out from your cover. Make sure to stand up, and ran on each of your own group, got it?"

"Uhh… Okay, sir. Best of luck for standing alone, then."

With that, the intercom went off.

Kotomi bit the bottom half of his mouth. Sure, he's good at stealth, but that reason itself would be damn sure to make sure he was on open field, where he doesn't have much place to hide. And he knew very well by the term that the SOC team said being a bait, he was clear either half or all of the enemy team was going after them, before going on a massive backstabbing.

He then heard a faint, clicking sound, before an explosion of an almost emptied claymore followed it.

KABOOOOOM!

The SOC was taken aback by this, but they never got the chance to think of what just happened as Kotomi's team suddenly sprang out of their cover and shot each one of them in the head, followed by a continuous "BEEP!" sound as the chain of "death" happened too fast.

Right after doing that, they all went into several directions with their own group, before they were chased by almost, and some even more the third amount of their own team. This, of course, also applied to Kotomi, as he was being followed by five people, one of which was rather bulky and slow.

He mentally cursed after spotting that image, remembering just how much a pain it is just to take him down. Even if he did it with the entire team, they spent roughly three magazines just to take him down.

A bullet darted past him, but didn't hit him. But given the fact that there's a static sound suddenly heard and electricity being in the sound, he presumed that the bullet takes out his intercom, which is bad, because… well, you know, having bad sense of direction and all…

Either that was a lucky shot, or an aimed one, probably both. Kotomi though, and as he thought earlier, he can practically see a clearing in front of him, but not near the camp site. He looked around, and saw that there's not much of forest left. Mentally cursing again, he takes a deep breath, and simply went into the open clearing.

He spun around at the middle of the open field, and, for the third time of the day, cursed.

In front him now was the Delta Force, Ranger Regiment, S.W.A.T, S.A.S, and one that he never knows due to his thick armor commander, all following him to the open field, albeit the latter was considerably slower than the former four.

"Figures…" Kotomi grumbled loudly. "I must have won the lottery of unluckiness today."

"Damn right you are, mate!" The S.A.S. commander replied with a smug grin. "But really, never would've thought, or even seen that you sent your team into scatter mode."

"His team is in the forest, Clark, and you know well that his team is nigh impossible to find there, even with numbers." The Delta Force commander reminded him.

Clark, The S.A.S. commander, shot him a glare. "Don't remind of that, dammit! It's better than nothing!"

The DF commander was about to reply when he suddenly stopped. "Yes, yes I know that's our plan, Jack, but this is not expected, you know!"

Kotomi raised an eyebrow after hearing the name being said, and then deduced that it was the juggernauts name.

"Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, and shut up already! Geez, sometimes, I wonder how can be stay quiet for a long time when you're not angry!"

Kotomi inched his hand towards his handgun, since both his assault rifle and submachine gun was still strapped to his back, and it would be pretty damn idiotic of him trying to take either one of those. But even then, he was caught when he heard the faint sound of machine gun rounds being moved, so he simply moved his hand upwards.

"Sheesh, no wonder he can detect us so easily, even sounds as slow as these bullets are heardable to him." The RR ranted after his machine gun was aimed to Kotomi.

"Hearable, not heardable." DF reminded him.

"Like I give a damn, at least you get the main idea."

Kotomi was, of course, bored, or more like, doesn't have anything to do, other than waiting for the five guys in front of him to do something, or at least, a close range combat, rather than hearing the ranting of the five commanders in front of him.

As if his wish was heard by God, which is, the S.W.A.T. commander walked closer towards him, before stopping a few meter in front of him.

"Say, since they won't stop bickering, why don't you have a fight with me?" He offered, raising his fist.

"Better than watching a bunch of commanders ranting about useless stuff like grammar." Kotomi said, also raising his fist.

"Say, since this is the first time we actually met this close and actually talk to you once, maybe I should also introduce myself. My name is James Walter, and I'm going to kick your ass soon!"

"You might already know me as Kotomi Horikawa, and I'm pretty sure than the one going to lose…" He paused for awhile.

"…Is you!"

"…Would be you!"

Both of them said at the same time, and then, their fists came into contact with each other.

* * *

Meanwhile, somewhere pretty close, but still far from the battlefield…

"Well, this would be the third one." Ran said, and then flew closer to the weakening part of the border.

She then concentrated in fixing the border, but was disrupted by a soft moan coming from her back. Smiling a little, she moved one of her tails to see a cat shikigami, also known as Chen, sleeping inside her tails. And it looks really comfortable too, sleeping inside nine fox tails.

She looked at her shikigami with a smile, before focusing to fix the border again. "This should take around five minutes, considering it's not large, at least, when compared the first two.

* * *

Kotomi ducked as a roundhouse kick nearly hit his head, and jumped back as a fist nearly punched his abdomen. He then performed a quick jab to James in the chest, making him step back a bit. Not giving him a chance to counter, he performed a low kick, causing his opponent to nearly fall, as James managed to hit the ground with his hand first, before moving out of the way as another kick nearly hit his back.

James stands up again, and retaliated with a couple punches, but all of it manages to be blocked by his opponent. Kotomi tried using a brief opening to attack, but James immediately pulled his arm as he dodged it, surprising him, and then punched him right at the face.

Quickly stepping back, he wipes his bleeding nose, and without any warning, pulled out his handgun, and opened a series of shots towards James, but he manages to get out of the way first.

BEEP!

He cursed when he heard the siren, the fact that dodging those bullets had make it towards one of his momentary allies, and said ally is not pleased too.

"HEY!"

"Blame him for dodging those bullets earlier!"

With a war cry, he charged at his opponent again, but shouting that war cry wasn't the brightest idea, since he is prepared by the time he tried to punch him, only for the latter to knee him right at his abdomen.

"*Pant* *Pant* You're a tough one, aren't you? No wonder your team wins almost every match." James said as he staggered back by the hit he received earlier.

"Flattery will lead you to nowhere," Kotomi replied coolly, and then used the window of opportunity to suddenly rush at James, the latter taken by shock as two punches hit him right at the chest.

He coughed after getting said hit, but it wasn't over, since his opponent immediately jabbed his throat, kicked his stomach, and then, head butted him. The chain of reaction sends him crashing towards the earth and landing with his rear, and then a loud sound was heard from him.

BEEP!

"Huh, I lost to a newcomer. Must be getting dull…" James commented his failure.

"Things change, and you always have to expect the unexpected." Kotomi said, before suddenly turning around and punched the living daylight of DF. He tried sneaking behind him, but if only he knew better that having a better hearing than everyone is a big damn advantage.

"GAH!" DF cried, and falls to the ground the same way as James, but as he was about to stand up, he received some bullets to his head and body, finally putting him down as the sound comes alive.

"You think I didn't hear you coming, Mister…" Kotomi squinted a little bit while looking at his name tag. "Gerald?"

"I know, but it's worth the shot." DF, or Gerald, sighed, and turned over to see Clark and Jack, who is the remaining two that's still haven't died yet. Yes, the shot hit RR, and he was still not happy about his "accidental death". "Hey Clark, are you going to do-"

His words are cut as three bullets hit said commander's head, followed by the sound, and a red light at the kevlar. I didn't tell anything about the red light earlier, didn't I? Now I did. "Okay, you are officially the worst one here."

"Hey, Frank didn't do anything, and yet you only mock me!" Clark piped up, his finger pointing towards RR, named Frank.

"Hey, I died by an accident, okay?!" Frank snapped. "And did you just said I haven't do anything?! I was the one that threaten him to not move when he tried to reach his handgun, you know!"

"He had a point," Kotomi joined in. "He did do that to me earlier, and you're by far… didn't seem to do anything to me yet."

"And you know that you're totally cornered when even the enemy admits it." James sighed while closing his eyes, before opening them again a second later. "Tell me, which is worst, died after threatening, or died doing nothing?"

"Dude, that's harsh." Kotomi commented.

"AAARGH!" Outraged, Clark immediately ran towards the S.W.A.T. commander, and then jumped onto him, but the latter rolled aside, letting the former crash to earth.

"Well, that's predictable." Gerald said, and then looked at Jack, who have been doing nothing until now other than ranting at the very start. But then, Jack suddenly raised his gun, which is a minigun, loaded with rubber bullets, and started heating the gun.

"Shit." Kotomi cursed, and runs towards the other side of the forest.

Jack, however, was not going to let him get away. He chased him, while the minigun was shooting, and that means that the recoil makes him practically not moving even a single inch forward.

The swarm of bullets passed Kotomi as he runs as fast as possible to the nearest cover, but since most of his body was pelted by one or two bullets, he wasn't exactly running at his fastest speed.

Come on, almost there! Kotomi shouted in his monologue. You can do it!

But things… didn't go as planned for him.

As soon as he manages to enter the forest, he… disappeared from thin air, which, of course, causing everyone in the vicinity to raise their eyebrow.

There was a long silence before James broke it with a question, "Did he… just disappeared out of thin air?"

* * *

This is actually faster than I expected, Ran thought. I only need to focus this for a couple of more second, and then it'll be back to normal.

But at that last couple of seconds too, that Kotomi passed through the barrier at the last second, but he managed to pass through it, at the same time as the barrier was fixed. But he didn't notice Ran as he went into the nearest tree to cover himself from the now not there anymore attack. Only after he peered to check his surroundings, he manages to see Ran.

Both stared in silence, and as a normal military would say when there's an outsider that they don't know passing their territory, did Kotomi broke the silence with a question, "What are you doing in this restricted area?"

* * *

Author's note : Yup, that's right, he's now officially in Gensokyo!

And if you want the reason why I named the commanders, but not his soldiers, let's just say that... they'll play on a bigger role, since it would probably be called spoilers if I tell you.

And as for my finals, I haven't run into problem yet... for two days. I still have three more days to go...

Next chapter : The safe zone is a lie


	3. The safe zone is a lie

"What are you doing in this restricted area?"

Ran frowned after hearing that question. Justified by the fact that she, unlike Yukari, couldn't understand what Kotomi just said. "Sorry, what did you just said?" She asked.

Kotomi pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance. "Urgh, Locals." He muttered, and then asked again, this time, using Japanese. "*Ahem* What are you doing in this restricted area?"

Ran couldn't help but to chuckle at the question. "Me? Inside a restricted area? What nonsense are you talking about?"

Kotomi was about to ask again, but Ran cut her before he even let out a single word. "Ah, don't answer that, outsider. I know exactly what I'm talking about, so don't answer that."

"Like hell you are, woman," Kotomi snarled at the kitsune. "I doubt you even know where the weight is at. And what's with that clothing of yours, are you trying to make a gender-bent Naruto?"

Ran knows who Naruto is, thanks to Yukari, and that part of question irks her. Sure, you can ask the former, but the latter? She is now amused with that one.

"…What are you talking about?" Ran asked, her face completely showing what can be described best as poker face. "I think you're the one who doesn't know where the weight is at right now."

DOR!

And the response was a bullet that shot straight into the sky from Kotomi's handgun, before he aimed at her. "Don't make me use force, woman, I know WHERE the weight is, and it's at me." Kotomi snarled again.

Needless to say, Ran sighed. She didn't want to get into this sort of mess, and since he knows what he's pointing towards her is dangerous, she was thinking of what to do now. Ran, also known as a true tactician, well… I can pretty much say that she can come out from the situation unharmed.

But of course, things wouldn't go quite as planned as Chen mumbled something under Ran's tails (and her sleep). Her sound is muffled thanks to the tails, but Kotomi can still hear the gist of it.

"Are you bringing someone with you?" Kotomi asked in a threatening tone.

"Eh? How did you know?" And of course, Ran was surprised by this. While she can still her sound rather clearly, she couldn't process the thought of a human, from that distance, to still hear her shikigami's muffled mumbling.

"Let's just say that I have better hearings than most people. And I'm going to ask one more time," Kotomi paused for awhile. "Are you bringing someone else with you?"

"…" Ran didn't was to answer it. Even if she is going to answer that, he'll probably already know the answer.

"I take that as a yes."

"And what do you gain by knowing that?"

"What do I gain by knowing that, I wonder?" Kotomi's face was showing a mocking face, before he shot the ground a few inches in front of Ran, the latter jumped back in shock. "Why of course, so that I know about your composition! Isn't that obvious?!"

"Ran-sama… What is that loud sound earlier?" Chen woke up from her nap, coming out from the tail. This actually amuses Kotomi, since he wonders how that tail was able to keep a person (or a child) inside.

"Chen, stay inside! This is dangerous!" Ran told her.

"Oh, you're bringing a child too, and this one is cosplaying a nekomata too, if that tail is an indication. I don't understand how you could keep her inside that… tail of yours, but that's not going to be problem now." Kotomi said, before he realized he was shooting rubber bullets earlier. Sighing, he changed the ammunition to REAL bullets.

…Yeah, he's totally serious about what he's doing.

"Either you follow me to base to be interrogated, or I will be forced to use force to bring you there."

"No! Ran-sama will not go with you, weird man!" Chen shouted, and then came down from Ran's tail, before stopping in front of the latter.

"Look, kid, I'm giving her an offer now. Either she comply, or I will be forced to bring both of you there with force."

"Try if you can, weird man! It's not like you can do it anyway!"

While the two are starting to have an argument, Ran was confused of her next action. Sure, she could just comply, but she knows that his base is not here, and she had a hunch that if she tells him that he was in Gensokyo, he would simply think of it as a lie. And she knows that unlike most outsiders, soldiers are ones that are tough ones to break from their brain cases, especially if it involved with anything that had to do with territory.

…That's her theory, at least, seeing how this one was thinking both her and Chen as cosplayer, and the fact that said soldier was not asking on how they move their tails further confirms her theory that he isn't messing with what he just said.

"Look, cat girl, just… just go with me, and everything is going to roll smooth…" Kotomi was already pissed beyond belief. "If you just-"

"No!" Chen cut him mid sentence.

And that also popped one of Kotomi's arteries.

"You know what, forget it! Looks like I need to use force after all!" Kotomi shouted, and shot her, but was still aiming for parts that wouldn't do fatal damage, since he needs them alive.

…And how surprised he was that Chen and Ran was able to dodge to the side, considering their range are ones that you can call really close. "Huh, I must I'm quite surprised by your reflexes."

"Chen! Stop!" Ran shouted, but to no avail.

Chen jumped to a tree after dodging another shot, and then launched herself from said tree towards Kotomi. The former tried to slash her with her nails, but the latter managed to block it using his sword. The two was locked to a stalemate, before Kotomi managed to overpower Chen, and tried shooting her with the handgun again, only for the latter to jump aside, and then tried to slash her again.

Kotomi blocked the attack again, but this time, he also tried to shot her at point black range, but Chen managed to see this, so she immediately jumped back as a shot almost went through her head. Chen quickly retaliated by jumping into the air, before spinning her way towards Kotomi, in which the latter got hit due to his confusion on how she did that.

"Tch!" Kotomi grunted as he takes the hit. "Not bad, girl. Not bad at all."

Kotomi jumped aside as Chen rolled her way to him again, and the latter crashed to a tree. Chen, however, lands on said tree rather than crashing to it, so she jumped towards another tree again, trying to gain the upper hand by getting into higher altitude.

…If you're wondering what Ran is doing now, let's say she's trying to come up with a plan.

Kotomi looked around, trying to see or maybe to hear the slightest sound of the trees being shaken, since there are too many leaves covering his view. A tree shakes behind him, and he quickly turned into said tree, but got hit as Chen crashed towards him, sending him to the ground, while she jumped back.

"Goddamnit, I need a distraction," Kotomi thought while searching for his flash bang. After grabbing what he THOUGHT was a flash band, he immediately pulled the pin, and throws it at Chen.

But sadly, what he throws was a hand grenade. And the fact that it was still full of explosives, unlike the claymore that only had its explosives to be a distraction, it was not going to end well for the receiving end of the bomb, which would be Chen.

While Kotomi was surprised about the fact he just threw a hand grenade, Chen was looking at what he throws curiously while it was soaring in the air. They say curiosity kills the cat, and this is what's going to happen next, only the kill part was not going to happen. Being a youkai had its advantages after all.

And then, the explosion occurred at what most soldier would say "Kill zone".

KABOOOM!

"NYAAAA!" Chen screamed in pain as she was propelled back by the hand grenade.

"CHEN!" Ran gasped as she saw her shikigami getting caught in the explosion, and immediately ran towards her. After arriving at her shikigami's landing spot (That is, after bouncing the ground several times to add the distance), she immediately asked her, "Chen, are you okay?!"

"…Sorry…" Kotomi muttered while standing up. "Didn't know that what I throw is a bomb."

While Ran heard it, she was more concerned about her shikigami. She noticed that the explosion was a similar one like a certain magician, said magician had it magically enhanced in order to give the receiving end minimum amount of damage, but he doesn't have it (More like he didn't know it in the first place). Some part of her skin was charred, and her clothes were torn pretty much everywhere, but only because of the splinter that the hand grenade caused. Oh, and she's also bleeding, not quite a lot, though.

"*Sigh* If you could just go with me from the start, this wouldn't have happened," Kotomi said, and then pulled his throat. "Gah, now I'm thirsty. Better drink something first."

After saying that, he grabbed a circular bottle, and started drinking its content.

"*Cough* Cough* R-Ran-sama…"

And with that, Kotomi spat everything inside his mouth due to the shock he had.

"Chen! Thank goodness, are you okay?!" Ran asked, worried.

"But that's… how did… That's not…" Kotomi was shocked beyond belief that someone survived a bomb at that range. Justified, since even some terrorist will almost certainly be dead after receiving a full blast at that range.

"Ran-sh-shama… It hurts…" Chen managed to say.

"Don't worry, Chen, everything going to be alright…" Ran assured her shikigami while wiping the blood from the latter using her clothes. "Now, you need to rest first and let your wounds heal first." Ran then picked up Chen, before putting her inside her tail again.

Right after that, she took a deep breath, and then sighed. She didn't want to resort to force, but she had no choice right now, and part of her also want to avenge Chen. She glares at the soldier again, and then hissed, "You sure have the guts to do that to her."

"But-"

"NO BUTS!" Ran cut her before he can finish his sentence. "Accident or not, you hurt her, and that's what matters to me. You are going to pay for that!"

Kotomi took a step back in shock. He didn't expect the woman to be that angry, but he was not going to back down just because of that. But before he can say a word to counter that, he suddenly felt… really small in front of Ran. He didn't know why, but the aura given by the woman in front of her feels dangerous.

Before he can even understand what was going on, Ran suddenly dashed towards him, the latter manages to dodge just in time as Ran slashed the tree right behind him, the tree immediately cut into three pieces. Kotomi, shocked by this, immediately rolled aside in order to avoid the falling tree, while Ran simply jumped into the air, and stayed there.

"Now you see where the weight is at, you mere human?" Ran growled at Kotomi as a magic circle appeared below her. "You are not in your world. you are in a different world, in Gensokyo, full of dangerous creatures where most of them hunts for human, where the ones that are weak will perish. Only a small amount of human can stand a chance here, and even if you're one of them, you will barely have a chance to win against me now."

Ran was giving him a harsher version of Gensokyo, where for most people, they will heard that Gensokyo was a land of paradise and so on, but of course, Ran was not giving him that. She was intending to scare Kotomi away by just words, and it was taking effect on him. But a question does come into her mind, deep within, "How am I going to persuade her to come with me now?!"

And of course, Kotomi wouldn't believe a single word of what Ran just said if it's not because of Chen managing to survive a bomb at that range, Ran is able to cut tree into three pieces easily, and that the latter was now flying in the air with magic circle below her feet. And of course, Kotomi now felt like an insect in front of her. He took some step back, distancing himself from the angry kitsune.

But Ran was not going to let him get away. She dashed towards him at a speed that barely left Kotomi time to jump back from the danger. She tried slashing him again, but Kotomi managed to block it with his sword. Ran can clearly see the scared face of the soldier right in front of her eyes, and she is (Right now, at least) was enjoying it. She pushed without any problem whatsoever, making Kotomi has to jump back in order to avoid the incoming doom.

Kotomi was now going on full survival mode. He ducked, parried, jumped aside, and dodged every time Ran was about to left him in several pieces. His mind was racing on what he should do now. Even if he were able to shoot her, there's barely time to do that, as every slashed that is parried, another slash from Ran's free hand have to make him dodge it. And then, an idea passed his mind.

"*Sigh* I hope this works…" Kotomi thought, and aimed his handgun towards his smoke bomb, after making sure it was the smoke bomb.

Ran frowned at what the soldier is about to do, but shrugged it off as he was only going crazy, so she tried slashing again, but to no avail. Ran had to admit that Kotomi was a good dodger and blocker, but that will lead him to nowhere if he couldn't-

DOR!

PSSSH!

Ran's train of thought was stopped when smoke cloud blotted her view. "So this is what he's planning to do earlier. I must say, he would have quite a good chance if he wants to stay here." Ran thought, before something pierced her left shoulder. She instinctively grabbed said shoulder, and looked that a bullet just pierced it, but it was already starting to heal.

"I don't know what I hit, but I just hope it will stay there for awhile," Kotomi thought, and then runs to the opposite direction.

Ran, hearing his footsteps, growled, "You can't run forever, human!" Right after saying that, she dashed towards the smoke cloud, and when she passed through it, she can clearly see that Kotomi's back was totally exposed. Grinning, she dashed again, and slashed his back, but not with enough force to cut him into three pieces.

"ARGH!" Kotomi screamed in pain, and instinctively grabbed the first bomb he came contact with before throwing it to his back without looking. Ran, knowing the danger of the bomb, was about to slash it before it explode in her face.

BANG!

But sadly, it exploded first. Luckily, it was a flash bang.

"My eyes!" Ran cried as the explosion makes her eyes blind for awhile, and also making her ears ringing. Kotomi, noticing the chance to attack her, took his assault rifle, change the ammunition from rubber to real, and shot both her knees and foot to make her unable to move first, before running again into the distance.

"GAH!" Ran cried again as she dropped to her knees, but then chuckled a little, before making a sad smile. "What am I doing? I let the protective me take the better me again… Master is going to punish me for this."

Worried about Chen, Ran looked at her shikigami again. Most of her wounds are already healed, but that doesn't change the fact that her clothes are still torn, and there are still burn marks every here and there around her body. Still with a sad smile, she muttered, "That human… He will have a hard time trying to fend off the feral youkais with that wound. I'm sorry for that action, but it was necessary, and also unnecessary at the same time."

* * *

Author's note : Not much to say other than reviews and critics are welcomed.

Next Chapter : The start of one's new life


	4. The start of one's new life

Author's note : Sorry for the late chapter, it's rather hard to find time to write when I have many things to do and my brain doesn't work like how I wanted it to do. I also found trouble with some part of the story, especially the ambush part and the newspaper part. I tried to make it look like the official ones, but since I can't really make news like that, well...

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this one! I especially make this a long one since I wanted to make the rest of the story quite a long one too.

* * *

"That human… He will have a hard time trying to fend off the feral youkais with that wound. I'm sorry for that action, but it was necessary, and also unnecessary at the same time."

Let's look at the soldier, shall we?

* * *

Panting, Kotomi slumped towards the nearest tree, after making sure his surroundings are clear, and that… most feral youkais are dead. There are quite a lot in front of him, and his assault rifle is smoking from the gun barrel. "*Pant* *Pant* This is crazy…" He muttered. "That woman is right… and I still can't believe I can fend them off even if they outnumber me by that much…"

…Well, let's just say that Ran underestimated him.

Now, let's see… One, two… Oh, there's a good fifteen youkais on the area, and I think I could've sworn I saw a certain youkai with a black vest there, but since most of them was having blood all over their body, I can't say for sure. Oh wait, that one has a bump on her head.

"And to top it off, my blood is leaking from my back…" He groaned. "And I can't trust a single person now…"

Well, you can. You just have to make sure they're not humanoid youkais and they don't have any intention that will lead you to the afterlife.

Forcing himself to stand up, he walked up to a certain area, trying to find clearing so that he can look for a place where he can heal himself, or at least with some person that wants to do just that.

A bush rustled, and Kotomi didn't waste any time to wait for the youkai to show up as he barraged the area with bullets, before another humanoid youkai slumped, its body full of holes and blood.

"I need to find a good place to hide…" Kotomi thought, and then he saw an opening. "Ah, great, just what I needed, an opening. I hope there're people that can tell me a good place to hide first."

Ignoring his screeching pain, he walked towards the opening. After a couple of steps, he saw a dirt road in the opening. "A road, huh… I hope there's going to be some people passing by." He mused for awhile, and settled down on the nearest bush that can conceal him while also looking for something that can be used to cover his wounds.

As if luck was on his side, he could hear some chatting in the distance. "One, no, two person is heading this way." Kotomi thought, and just waited for the source to come closer. As they got closer and he could get his view, he could see two teenage girls, apparently around college year in Kotomi's mind, and could now hear clearly what they're talking.

One of the girls has a long, blond hair and purple eyes, and was wearing a purple dress with a white… scarf? Ribbon? I don't know, but it was held by something white, and was wearing a white puffy hat, for a reason that Kotomi couldn't think of. The other one has short, black hair that reaches her shoulder, brown eyes, and was wearing a white T-shirt and a red tie, a black skirt that drops until her knee, and was wearing a black hat, with a white ribbon tied to the hat, and also had a bag that was slumped to her right side.

…Goddamnit, I need to get better at describing people. But I think you get the gist of the two girls here, so I'll call them by their name immediately.

"So, Renko, we're going to go home first now?" The one with the purple dress, Maribel Hearn, asked.

"Of course, Mari!" Renko Usami, the one with white T-shirt, answered with enthusiasm. "We're going to stay here for winter break, right? So of course it's natural for us to go back and take changing clothes!"

"But then, what about our homework?" Maribel asked, her voice still having some sort of worry in it.

"We can just ask Yumemi-san about it, so don't worry!" Renko answered with a thumb up. "I'm sure she can pretty much answer most of our question!"

"Mari, I think, was mostly timid, while Renko, on the other hand, is really energetic," Kotomi analyzed, and then shook his head. "Dammit, I'm here to ask them a question, not to analyze them!"

"Well, if you say so!" Maribel said, her voice turning into a cheerful one. "Then let's haste our way to Reimu-san!"

"Shit, I can't just jump on them and ask them a good place to hide like this!" Kotomi screamed in his mind. "I need a good distraction!"

As if heeding to his words, some bush behind him rustled faintly. He sighed in frustration, but also had some relieve in it as he finally got a good, or even one of the best distraction to ask someone: Getting ambushed by something. That's usually a pretty good reason, at least that's what on Kotomi's mind. He then turned to his back, before jumping out from the bush towards the road, shooting his AUG towards the bushes, shocking both girls.

"Whoa! What's a soldier doing here?!" Renko said in surprise.

"Goddamnit, these freaking things just won't give up!" Kotomi shouted.

On cue, some bush from both sides of the road rustled again, and several youkais jumped out from it, while the duo gasped and looked around them, Kotomi sighed.

"Oh great, more trouble," Kotomi deadpanned, before looking at the two still shocked girls. "Ah, good timing, hey both of you, catch!"

Renko and Maribel looked to the soldier again, as Kotomi throws his submachine gun towards Maribel after changing its magazine to real bullets, and his pistol and knife to Renko. The both of them managed to catch them, albeit clumsily.

"Use that to defend yourself!" Kotomi shouted again, before he jumped backwards to avoid a youkais attack.

"But we're not good with guns!" Maribel cried.

"Just press the trigger and aim at these… creatures! That usually works!"

After saying that, Kotomi ducked to avoid a pincer attack, before using his sword to slash the one in front of him, and shooting the one behind him. Standing up again, he shot some youkais right at the head with deadly precision, taking almost all of them with only one shot, some taking a bit more.

"Goddamnit!" Kotomi cursed while plopping out the magazine from its holder, before throwing it towards the nearest youkai that was about to attack him, stunning it, while he reinserted a full magazine. Right after doing that, he slashed another youkai that tried to attack from his back after hearing his silent steps. He then glanced at the two girls that he just gives him his weapons.

"Okay, the purple one was having quite some trouble with the P90, but I guess that was expected," Kotomi analyzed. "The white one however… she looks really experienced for no apparent reason. Heck, she even single handed the knife and hand gun while hurting those two creatures, and that's saying something!"

"I need ammo here!" Renko shouted while clicking a button that drops the now empty magazine, Kotomi in response thrown a magazine. Renko managed to catch the magazine using her other hand that had a knife on it, but she nearly got hit by an attack while reloading, but managed to jump back first.

"She looks like she's a well trained soldier or something!" Kotomi thought while parrying a slash. "She'll be good in military like this! Wait, that's not the case here!" Kotomi shook his head, but in doing that, he gets punched right at the stomach. He stepped back while cringing, before slashing said youkai. "Gods, how many are these creatures?!"

"H-Hey, mister! I think I'm out of ammo!" Maribel cried while trying to take out the glass part of the gun, which would be the magazine. After she did take it out, she doesn't have enough time to react to the already thrown magazine, and she barely catches it, but catch it she did. However, she failed to notice a youkai was about to slash her, but she was saved by Renko. The latter stabbed her… Kotomi's knife right through the youkai's forehead, killing it instantly.

"Are you okay, Mari?!" Renko asked without looking at her friend while shooting the youkais in front of her, and then pulled the knife from the youkais head in a reverse grip.

"U-Uh, yeah… thanks." Maribel was still shocked about her friends action, but she snapped back soon after, before clumsily putting the magazine into its place. After doing so, she opened fire towards the youkais in front of in full auto, causing the recoil to throw the bullets almost everywhere.

"Don't shoot it just like that!" Kotomi berated her while taking a glance, but still defended himself using his knee when a punch almost hit his stomach again. "You need to make your shots count! I didn't bring much ammo here, y'know!"

"Ah, sorry!" Maribel said in return, before stopping to take aim. She slightly looked at her friend, and boy how shocked she was. Well, she would be when Renko was, well, in a focused state, each of her shot aimed to kill instantly, and that every slash would end up fatal, or would kill the youkais instantly, unless she used it for defense, that is. Maribel shook her head, and refocused her aim again, but she realized that the youkais are now backing away ever so slowly. "H-hey! They're backing away!"

"Good, that means they've had enough now." Kotomi looked at the now running away youkais with a glare. "Those creatures are really annoying. What are those anyway?"

And that's when he noticed several very faint steps from his back. Renko tried shooting the youkai first, but was already out of ammo first, so she intended to shout to Kotomi, but was a bit surprised when Kotomi slashed the youkai right at the stomach, making it cry in pain while also landing on its rear.

"Go away, and I may spare your life." Kotomi said with a cold tone, and also a dead serious face. Oh, while also pointing his sword.

The youkai nodded frantically, and then started running back into the forest. But, Kotomi said 'may' rather than will, so…

CLICK!

"Gah, out of ammo. Well, that one sure has luck on its side." Kotomi grumbled while reloading the gun. He then looked towards the two girls, and asked, "You two alright?"

"Y-Yeah, thanks." Maribel answered. "But why didn't you use danmaku? I mean, that's how they settle things here."

"Danmaku?" Kotomi lifted an eyebrow, seemingly puzzled. "What's that? Some sort of fighting method?"

"Well, that is correct, mister…" Renko answered this time, although she couldn't finish due to not knowing his name.

"Kotomi, Kotomi Horikawa." Kotomi said.

"Horikawa-san." Renko added. "Well, you see-" Before she could explain, Kotomi coughed. Blood.

"Ah great, more blood is rushing out." Kotomi snarked. "Just when I thought my back is bleeding from three different slashes is not enough, my body just had to make me cough blood. Fan-frigging-tastic."

And that's when both girls realized blood was dripping from his back. But considering what they did earlier, it's justifiable they only realized now.

"Wha-since when?!" And it would be normal if one were to freak out, in this case, Maribel does. Renko is a bit shocked too.

"Freaking nine tailed fox… a kitsune was it? Yeah, slashed me after accidentally throws a bomb to a nekomata. Tried apologizing, but ended up getting this first, freaking son of a bitch." Kotomi answered with a visible angry mark on her face. Renko was about to ask if Ran did it, but Kotomi cut in first, "So, any good places to hide? And please, I hope you know where's one without-*Cough* *Cough* …without any of those creatures."

"Well, there's a cave near the shrine over there, wanted to explore that cave, but never had the time." Renko said while pointing towards the end of the other road. She was about to give him treatment before Kotomi throws all of his other guns magazines, be it the handgun or submachine, all towards the holder.

"There, and keep the guns for yourself. Just think-*Cough* *Cough* …think of it as a thank you reward." Geez, give them at least time to say that they want to help you. "Oh, and by the way," He added, looking at Renko. "I think I like you."

"What are you getting at, mister? We just met earlier." Renko deadpanned while putting Kotomi's-now-her's gun and knife (This one was cleaned first) at her bag, Maribel's followed soon afterwards. "You're not actually trying to hit me, are you?"

"Oh, come on! I'm not joking here!" Kotomi said in exasperation. "You're age is still perfect, probably about two or three years younger than me, and you have really good eyes too!"

While the both of them was actually shocked that Kotomi actually trying to hit her, Renko asked, albeit slightly blushing now, "W-What are you talking about?"

"With that slender body of yours, no wonder I find you attracting! Now let me say that again. I like you…" Kotomi continued, not answering her question.

He paused, and while Maribel was waiting with full expectation on some of the next words, Renko was, well… having some minor brain problem, to say the least.

"…To join the army."

Silence filled the air after Kotomi said that, and he also broke it too with laughter. "Ahahahaha! Oh god, I always wanted say that to someone, hahahahaha!"

It's safe to say that, Maribel was confused, while Renko was steaming red, due to anger and embarrassment. The latter immediately takes out her handgun again and loaded it with a rubber magazine. After cocking the gun did Kotomi realized that Renko was about to shot him, so he immediately ran towards the other side, albeit limping due to blood loss, and the fact that his head was getting hit in rapid succession by rubber.

"Oh god, my stomach, my stomach!" Kotomi cried while still trying to contain his laugh, and then shouted, "Oh, and you actually fit to be one! And just say that you don't know about the massacre if someone asks you two, just say something like it was already like this when you arrived!"

His figure then disappeared in the distance. Renko sighed while putting back the handgun, while Maribel just finished digesting his words. But she simply let out a small laugh, and then said, "Well, at least she likes you."

"S-Shut up, Mari." Renko said, her face still beet red. She then looked around at the bloody mess around her while putting the handgun back. "Let's hurry, Mari, before that tengu sees this."

Sad that luck isn't with you girls now…

"Ayayaya, What happened here?!" A certain crow tengu asked while landing down.

Both of them sighed. This is going to take a while for them.

* * *

"Why *Pant* …there must be *Pant* …this long stairs here now…" Kotomi groaned while climbing high staircases. You know to where, right? "I'm dying here, and I *Pant* …have to climb these stairs… And they also *Pant* have to make it steep to…"

Kotomi coughed blood again, but instead of starting to give up, he climbed faster than before, trying to reach his destination even faster instead of giving up. When he heard some sound of people talking however, he stopped right at the last step, still crouching. He climbed the stairs using all four legs, you know.

He peeked up, and saw two girls sitting on the porch of a shrine, one of them was a shrine maiden wearing mostly red and white, and the other one was an oni that wears white sleeveless shirt and purple skirt. You know who. Noticing the horns, Kotomi quickly made a plan in order to know which one has the horns, but having lost quite a considerable amount of blood, well...

"Goddamnit, which one is having that horn? That shrine maiden or that little girl?" His view is hazy due to his blood loss. "Oh well, I'll just *Cough* *Cough* …throw this flash bang and a smoke bomb in case someone or thing is going after my ass."

Taking a flash bang after checking it several times (Both name and color), he then took out the smoke bomb. Mustering all that is left from his strength, he quickly pulled the pin of the flash bang, and throws it towards the shrine. This catches the attention from the two girls.

"Ey, Reimu, what's that? Kinda looked like the one that Marisa throws." The oni, Suika Ibuki, asked groggily, due to her being drunk.

"I don't know, maybe some fairies are trying to play another prank. *Sigh* They never learn, don't they?" The shrine maiden, Reimu Hakurei, answered the drunken oni.

As the flash bang came closer towards the duo, Reimu takes out an ofuda, and started chanting something. The odufa shakes for a while after the chanting is complete, and a white aura appeared around her. She didn't want to take any chances of getting hurt from things being thrown towards her. She knew from a lot of experience. Suika, however, simply watched with her groggy look. The flash bang landed some feet away from them, and didn't do anything as time went by.

"So, ya think something is going to happen from 'at thing?" Suika asked with a yawn.

"Well, it should do something very so-"

BANG!

Reimu, being watching the flash bang from that range, was of course, blinded by the sudden light and loud explosion. The only loud sound she ever heard was when her friend, Marisa, throws her bottle towards them in a fight, but it didn't create a loud sound as the flash bang. It doesn't even come close to reach the loudness of the explosion. In other words: She was blinded and her ear ringing for the time being.

Suika, however, having to yawn at the right time (And quite a long one too), was save from the bright flash it makes, but didn't save her from the loud bang. It only annoyed her more than anything, though, since she was used of having heard a MUCH louder sound (which is a scream).

Kotomi, having heard the explosion, run… limped from the staircase. But of course, since Suika isn't blinded by the flash, so she got a good look at him after opening her eyes. The first thing she noted was that he was an outsider, since he wears a suit that clearly isn't from Gensokyo. Two, he was the one that threw the tube thing, after deducting it. One does wonder how she even thinks about it.

And lastly, she failed to notice that a smoke bomb was thrown towards her. Said bomb collided with her face, and immediately burst out its content, being only a white smoke to blot out people's view. She yelped as the gas went out, and then condensed the air so that the smoke was only a ball of sphere now. She also notices that Kotomi was nowhere in her sight again, having run after the smoke blotted her view.

"H-Hey, Suika, what's going on?! Is someone trying to attack us?!" Reimu was worried, since if she was blinded and her ears ringing, she can't fight back.

"Dunno, but there's an outsider that limped here. When I got a good look at him, he simply threw another one of these tube things, and smoke comes out from it." Suika answered while playing with the ball of smoke. "Either that guy's going to do a sneak attack, or he just runs away."

"What?!" Reimu shouted, since she can't hear the answer clearly. "What did you just say?!"

"Look, just wait for a moment, maybe the effect gonna wear off soon." Suika said, this time a bit louder.

Reimu couldn't really hear what Suika just said, but the effect from the bomb was wearing off, so she waited for some more time so said effect was fully gone. After some more seconds, the effects wear off, and then she opened her eyes after closing it shut the whole time after the explosion. The first that caught her eyes was the trail of blood left by Kotomi.

"Hey, whose blood is that?" Reimu asked while pointing the blood trail.

"Eh?" Suika groggily asked back, and then looked at the same spot Reimu pointed at. "Maybe that guy, I guess."

"Hmm…" Reimu looked at the trail, and then looked where it goes. She then followed the blood trail, leaving Suika behind. Suika followed her, but stopped as a newspaper was thrown a couple of feet to her side.

"Well, it's not often that Aya drops a newspaper this early, maybe this have something actually important in it."

Suika grabbed the newspaper, and briefly read the first page of the newspaper, and immediately went after Reimu while still holding the newspaper and shouting, "Reimu, Reimu, you gotta look at this!"

Reimu stopped on her tracks, and looked back to the running oni. "What is it? It's not often seeing you like that."

"Read this!" Suika handed her the newspaper.

Reimu takes the newspaper, and then read it.

* * *

**A Large Scale Youkai Extermination at the Forest of Magic **

Today, at the forest of magic, happened what seemed to look like a slaughter to many feral youkais. When I was about to go to Hakurei Shrine, I could see a large tint of red on the road that leads to the shrine I decided to go and check it. It turns out that there was a large corpse of youkai that appeared to have been fighting a one-sided battle, given the amount of about fifty nine youkais are seen with holes at their head and some has slash around their vital parts. There are fourteen more found near there, with one found to have a bump on her head, which unsurprisingly was the youkai of darkness. There were two people there when I arrived, so I decided to ask them some questions.

Aya (A) : What happened here? Do any of you know what happened here?

Maribel (M): N-No, we don't. We just happened to past here.

Renko (R) : Yeah, we happened to hear some gunshots here, so we hurried up to see what's going on.

A : Mmhmm, so you found this… massacre. Do you find the one did this?

M : Well… No, but we-

R : Hush, Mari! He told us not to say a word about him, right?

A : Ayaya, something smells fishy here. Come on, tell me the truth here…

R : What about if I said no?

M : But Renko, I'm going to tell her his outfits…

A : So, are you hiding something here? You met this guy, right?

M : Yeah. But, should we just tell her, Renko?

R : I don't know, part of me tells that something bad is going to happen if I tell her…

A : Come on, I'm going to keep pestering if you didn't tell me the truth…

R : Fine. The faster you're gone, the better. I'll keep in a simple three line. Was about to go to the shrine when that person jumped out of a bush while shooting something. Youkais suddenly jumped out from both side, cue said person gives us his guns to help him. After repelling the attack, told us to keep it a secret. There, happy?

A : Couldn't be happier than now! Oh, and how does the person look like, and his name, maybe?

M : Well, he wears green camouflage shirt and pants, with a black vest with lots of pockets on it, pads for shoulder, knee, and elbow, black boots, a gray helmet, a black mask that covers half of his face from the bottom so that we can only see his eye, and was carrying a… gun, if you know what that is. And his name is-

R : Mari, stop. That should be enough for her. You described him accurate enough.

A : Ayaya, come on…

R : You told "maybe" earlier, so shush. You delayed us long enough.

Sensing a little danger if I keep them delayed, I stopped the interview and went back. They didn't tell me more than that, so I can't tell you more. Who is this person, and what is his intention with massacring the youkais? Surely, this is a mystery!

* * *

Finished reading the news, Reimu thought about it. "Gun? Person? Is an outsider came in and was trying to cause an incident? No, that can't be right. There's surely something that will make him do this."

"So, what about it?" Reimu finally asked.

"You not gonna do something about it?" Suika was even more surprised by her friend's question.

"Well, this person is massacring youkais, not humans, so in a sense of way, he's helping me exterminating the youkais." Reimu answered while folding the newspaper. "And surely, there must be a reason why. Feral youkais doesn't attack a person in masse if a human doesn't have some sort of large wound that…"

Her words trailed out as she looked at the blood trail again. Piecing this and that together, Reimu managed to make sense of the massacre: It was for self defense.

"Reimu? You're spacing out here." Suika waved her hand in front of the shrine maiden's face, and Reimu snapped back after piecing the puzzle.

Instead of answering however, she went to the shrine. This confuses the oni even more, but the oni waited there. Eventually, Reimu went out from the shrine, with her ofudas in her hand and her gohei in her other hand.

"Going somewhere?" The oni asked.

"Yeah, can't have that outsider wandering in the forest with that wound. Say, the outsider looked exactly like what Maribel said in the newspaper, right?" Reimu answered.

"Yeah, fits exactly like a mirror."

"Then that settles it. I'm going to find this outsider, and I will bring him back."

"Oooh, let me follow! Let me follow!"

Reimu simply nodded as she flew several inches from the ground, following the blood trail, followed suit by Suika.

* * *

Near a mountain cave, a girl was reading a newspaper that was thrown nearby. The girl had purple hair and eyes, and was wearing a red dress, white scarf, and white sleeves. She had stopped her training after the newspaper landed near her. Being bored, she decided to just took a quick glance once, but now, she was reading it repeatedly, unable to comprehend how three person managed to overpower forty nine youkais, and maybe fourteen more by only a single human. If it was the shrine maiden, she could understand, three human with something called gun? Nope, she didn't.

"I wonder if this human is strong enough to test my renewed power." Sara, the gatekeeper of the cave that leads to Makai, murmured. But she sighed while remembering something that her creator, Shinki, had told her to do.

* * *

"Sara~." Shinki-sama called me. Odd, she doesn't usually come here personally. She would usually send Yumeko-san if she has something with me. This must be something important.

I stopped my training and looked to my back, where Shinki-sama was standing with her usual smile, and a box.

"What is is, Shinki-sama?" I asked her. "Is there something I can do?"

"Well, yes. In fact, I need you to keep this box with you. It's a top secret product, so I can't share it with everyone." Wow, a top secret, and I was one of the chosen to be known? I felt really happy now.

"Ah, I thank you for the trust you have in me. But what is inside the box, and who else did you tell, Shinki-sama?"

"Well, I told Yumeko, Yuki, Mai, and lastly, you. After all, this thing inside here is a work project I have just finished. When you found a human, a strong one would be better, inject the content of the syringe that is inside this box. If they don't, just convince them with something about Makai." Shinki told me the instructions. "But before you inject it, call Yumeko first, so she can come and guide the human up."

"Yes, Shinki-sama." I bowed with courtesy, before Shinki-sama handed me the box. I took the box and saw Shinki-sama went back inside with a smile. I looked inside, and could see a syringe with some black and red content inside it. Whatever it is, it's for a human, and I don't want to test it myself since Shinki-sama had trusted me.

* * *

"Well, sparring can wait until someone else arrived here." Sara thought while folding the newspaper, and then looked at the box while putting down the newspaper.

"T-There… *Cough* *Cough* It… is…"

Sara raised an eyebrow as she heard the voice, before she could see a human which was paler than most human she ever saw. Quickly remembering what she was told to do, she looked to a crow that was rested on her shoulder, and whispered something to it. The crow cawed, and went into the cave. She opened the box beside her, and took the syringe, before walking to the pale human. She recognized the human as he was wearing the same thing that what had been described in the newspaper, but she kept it to herself.

Kotomi looked in vain as a girl with a syringe was walking towards him, and he cursed himself. He was losing too much blood now, and he didn't need more trouble than trying to stay awake. He tried asking the girl, but was in vain since his voice barely made it out from his throat. He was totally exhausted, and he knows it. Having a lot of blood now out of his body was not helping the problem. The girl crouched as she looked at his face, and asked something that Kotomi could barely hear due to losing focus, but he was sure it was something about his health.

"Do I look… like I was… in a-*Cough* *Cough*…in a good condition?" He barely spat angrily, but he was able to say it.

Sara was a little concerned about the human's health. She know that with three wounds at the humans back that deep and was continuously pouring, the pale of his skin would make sense that he was losing blood, and lots of it. Without much more thinking about the answer she received, she injected the syringe into his palm, and unloaded it.

Kotomi cringed as the needle pierced his skin, but he couldn't muster enough energy to even move his hand. He let the girl unload whatever was in the syringe, and he immediately fell to the ground soon after Sara finished injecting the content of the syringe, unable to stand on all four again.

Sara panicked as Kotomi fall to the ground. She thought he was dead, but the really shallow and almost unnoticeable breath was still there, and when she checked his pulse, it was still pumping blood, even if it felt as if it was going to die anytime soon. She was about to lift the man herself. Before she could lift the man however, Yumeko was already on the scene.

"So, is this the human, Sara?" Yumeko asked, making the gatekeeper jump in surprise.

"A-ah, yes!" Sara stammered a bit. "But I think he wouldn't live long enough now…"

Instead of berating her for wasting something that her goddess has made herself, Yumeko smiled a little. "Don't worry about the man's health, he'll be fine if you already injected it."

"That's good to hear." Sara let out a sigh of relieve afterwards. She looked at Shinki's maid again, and could see that she was staring to the far away. "Yumeko-san? Something wrong?"

"Sara, keep the shrine maiden and an oni as long as you can. I'm going to bring the human with me." Yumeko told her, before she picked Kotomi as if he doesn't weight much, before she flies inside the cave, heading towards Makai. Sara went soon afterwards, but stopped at the entrance of the cave with the intention to stop the shrine maiden and an oni that Yumeko told her. Soon after, the two mentioned was in front of her.

"Stop! This is as far as you can go!" Sara shouted, stopping the two.

"You sure he went this way, Reimu?" Suika asked the shrine maiden, ignoring the gatekeeper in front of her.

"Where else would he gone to if not here?" Reimu answered with another question, and looked at the gatekeeper. "Step aside please, and you won't get hurt."

"As a gatekeeper, it is my duty to stop anyone that's not from Makai, and I'm not going to step aside." Sara mustered all her will to say that. She know full the consequence for not letting her in, and with an oni, she was sure she'll be done in a second, but her duty comes first than anything else.

"Well, you heard her." Suika said while flexing her arm. "Do it the rough way, it seems. And the better way too."

"For you, but not for me. I'm just here to pick that human, not because I was going to stop an incident." Reimu told her friend. She immediately took out a card, and said its name. "Divine Spirit "Fantasy Seal"."

* * *

Yumeko finally reached the inside of the cave: Makai, a world full of demons. She could feel as the air felt totally different from the outside, but she was used to it. She looked at the soldier, who is now unconscious due to the blood loss. She looked back, and could hear several explosions and a brief flash of colorful light reaching her eyes.

"Well, at least she buys them some time. I should give her my credit when I come to see her again." Yumeko thought as she flew towards a fortress made of crystal material, where her mistress resides. She passed through The Frozen Fields, and found no one there. "They must've went there." Yumeko mused. She then looked at the human again, and said something.

"Welcome to Makai, test subject number one thousand, three hundred, and fifty seven. I hope to see you in action soon, and to see who will become your master."

* * *

Author's note : The next one's going to take the POV of the soldier and the outside world's soldier in third, and as always, reviews and critics are welcomed.

Next Chapter : Not everything is going as planned


	5. Not everything is going as planned

Author's note : Well, I decided that I made the outside world part after this chapter (I blame my short lived memory), and also, to clear things up, I decided that Yuki and Mai in here are older, hence the different clothing (For Mai, since Yuki didn't really got a change), and also, I used one of the not-official Lily Black, although I might make her quite a bit too overpowered here (And for the rest of the story), since her power resembles... Nope, I'm going to tell you that after this chapter.

Anyway, here's an update!

* * *

(Kotomi's POV)

…Ugh…

…Okay, next time, bandage open wound without looking for a place to hide.

And why am I still thinking clearly? Am I in the afterlife already? And why's my back so soft?

I could feel that I was laying down flat on my back, which feels like there's something attached to it, and when I opened my eyes, I could also see that my vision was not hazy, so I could see clearly that there's a violet cherry tree blossom in front of me.

It's either I'm dead, or my mind really needs oxygen badly that it somehow turned the leaves of the earlier tree that I nearly fainted to turn into a cherry blossom tree.

…On second thought, it would probably be much more possible that I'm dead now. *Sigh* Should've expected that I wouldn't make it.

I kept my position for some more second, before I sat down on where I was laying, and I was greeted by higan flowers, rocks, some more higan flowers, rocks, some more cherry blossom trees, and the list goes on about those three. Nothing interesting… except for a sleeping woman on one of the rocks. She somehow looks totally familiar, but I don't remember…

…Ah, the weird scythe. She must be one that decapitated my head during my dream. But I bet this is not where I got decapitated, thought, since there's not even a speck of these higan flowers when my head (Probably) was cut from the rest of my body.

*Rustle*

"Who's there?!" I immediately shouted while preparing a combat stance.

"Hmm… Pale skin, huh? Died of blood loss, I see. Quite a rare way to die for me."

Right after those words, the tree shakes a bit as a girl jumped from the tree, and landed right in front of me as if she's a spider man or other kind of superheroes when they landed. This one looks like the one that was playing with that black ball of hers, but I don't see one with her. Wrong people, maybe? Or wrong place?

"Hello? Why are you looking at me like that?" Crap, I spaced out.

"Ah, nothing, nothing," I answered quickly. "You make me remember someone."

"Oh, really now, youkai?"

"Youkai? I'm a human, you know." And why did she call me a youkai?

"Did you get amnesia? You clearly have wings, even if a weird one, and one of your eyes is looking like the ones you find at lizards."

"…Huh?"

The girl facepalmed. "Oi, oi, how many blood did you lost just now? And… oh."

"What now?" I asked her.

"*Giggle* I didn't see that one, sorry about that."

The hell is wrong with this girl?

As if that isn't weird, she suddenly closed her eyes right in front of me there. I'm not sure what she's doing with her eyes closed, but her constant change at eyebrow position from simple flat, to frown, and then lifted it, I'd say she's doing something, but I don't know what. She opened her eyes soon after, and eyed me again, this time, I could see her eyes was something that says a vulture just got its meal. I don't like this…

"*Chuckle* I see that you're cause of death was from blood loss. You really should tend those wounds, you know? Oh, and what an interesting dream you have."

"What? What did you just do? Or more importantly, who are you? Where am I?" I blurted out as many questions as I can.

"Whoa, outsider, slow down a bit, I'm not a robot that can answer all your questions." The girl in mostly black said, as she took her hat like it was some sort of top hat, and then bowed. "My name is Lily Black, and it's a pleasure to meet you, Kotomi Horikawa. You can call me Black."

"How did you know my name?!" And what's with that stance you did earlier?

"Whoa, calm down, soldier." No I'm not! "If you don't, then I won't answer your questions."

"Ergh… fine." Can't do anything but to give up… for now…

"Well, what did I just do? When I closed my eyes, I can get some sort of "memories" from some days before your death, but only several days, since I can't go much further than that. Where are you? You're in Muenzuka, where ghosts reside when they're dead, and if you go over there," Black pointed towards my left, which I have no idea if it's west or east, north or south. Practically, I don't really care. "You'll get to the Sanzu River, and on the other side of it was Higan, where the yama for this particular place, resides to judge the dead. And that woman over there is the local shinigami."

"Must be a lazy one if there's one dead spirit right now talking to a… what are you, anyway? Youkai?"

"No, no, I'm not really a youkai. I'm a… fa… fai… pwah!"

"What's wrong, can't even spell your species, Black?" I taunted her a bit.

"Watch your tongue, soldier, I just can't spit it out, that's all." She glared at me for a second, and I swear I could sense death aura surrounding her, which is kind of scary, to be honest, coming from a girl. "Okay, I'm a fai… fair… bah! I'm a fairy!"

"Fairy?" I said again, to which she nodded with reluctance. "You certainly looked a lot bigger than the fairies my place imagined. Aren't you supposed to be this small?" I asked, emphasizing its size using my hand.

"No, some fairies here are about a meter tall, but I'm an exception, since I don't exactly belong to that group of fairies."

"Yeah, I don't imagine them having a glare that makes them feel dead even after they're dead." I chuckled a little bit from the last one, but stopped soon after. "So what group of fairies you based on, then, Black?"

"Well, I'm not sure about that, even if it's the greater type ones. I'm probably one of a kind… fairy, since my power doesn't exactly belong there, or probably anywhere."

"Oh, and why did you want me to call you Black? I can just call you Li-"

"Good heavens, don't! I don't want to be called that!" Whoa, that's a fast reaction. "I don't want to be called the same as the fairy of spring!"

"Did the fairy have the same name as you did?" I asked.

"Yeah, in which we looked exactly like twins, if not for the fact that I was much taller than her and her eyes are green. And she wears almost exactly like me too, except that hers are colored white."

"So, by logic, she's named Lily…"

"White, yeah. That's why I prefer being called by my color."

"But why, thought? I don't see her, so why can't I call you with Lily? Feels tastier in my mouth."

She massaged her eyes in frustration as she put one hand on the trunk of the tree. "Please… just call me with my color… that much I can already appreciate."

"Hmm…" Maybe I could somehow make me call her by Lily only. "Well, when that fairy's not around, can I call you by L-"

BRAK!

T-T-T-T-T-T-The t-t-t-t-t-t-tree… It got… it got separated just like that…

"Pretty please, Kotomi onii-chan?" She asked again like a small child. If it's not because of the fact that her smile is completely forced and that she just separated a tree like that, I would seriously consider patting her head right now.

CRASH!

And the loud crash didn't help to lighten the mood either.

"Hmph?! Wha?!" And someone just wake up from their sleep.

"Pretty please~?"

"F-F-F-Fine! I'll call you Black!"

"Yaaay!" She threw her hands into the air. "Thank you! Here, I'll give you a free hug!"

**CRACK!**

"AAAARGH! MY BACK! BLACK, YOU'RE HUGGING ME TOO TIGHT!"

"Ah, sorry!" She immediately released me from her building crushing hug. "Are you okay?!"

"Owowowowow… my poor back…" I cried in pain while holding my back. I could feel something sprouted from it when I touched certain parts of it, but I ignored it, since my back is the most demanding one to get attention. "If you don't count my back being crushed into fine dust, then I'm perfectly fine…" I managed a weak chuckle too, due to the huge amount of pain from my back.

"What the-?! What happened to the tree?!" The abruptly awakened shinigami decided to pay us a visit.

"Ah, yeah, sorry about that… Hehehe…"

"You did this?! Wait a minute, I never seen you here before, and you're certainly not that fairy, since it's nearly winter now…"

"Well, at least someone finally realized I'm not her. Oh wait, I nearly even met any of Gensokyo's residents, so you're probably the only one that can differentiate me from that fairy."

"You… What are you? You're leaking too much power…"

"Ah ah ah, I can't tell you that, dear Komachi. It's a secret to anyone."

"And how did you know my name?"

Seriously, what's going on with that shinigami and that… overpowered as hell notsomuchofafairy?

"Because you're pretty famous for your laziness, ehehehe. Anyway, drop that battle stance, please, you won't even land a single scratch to me, except if I have to hold that scythe of yours."

"I demand an answer! There shouldn't be any power that can block my powers to tell one's lifespan!"

"Yeah right, as if you can in the first place. Hmm? Oh, you're going so soon, Kotomi?"

"What are you talking about?" I asked her, when I noticed that I become a bit lighter by passing minute. "Wait a minute… what's happening?"

"Huh? There's a spirit waiting here?! No~! Eiki-sama is going to scold me again!"

"You fail at doing your job, shinigami/Komachi." Both Black and I said at the same time. We traded each other a look, and laughed a little.

"Well, anyway, don't worry, young Kotomi, you have a brand new life waiting for you. New body, new power, but the same memory, so worry not, young soldier."

"So… I'm entering some sort of reincarnation?" And you sounded like some wise old man too.

"You can say it's somewhere along those lines."

I can feel that by each passing second, my body feels lighter, to the point I becomes translucent enough to barely see my own hands.

"Don't worry, Kotomi…" Huh, worry what? "Remember your motto, "Always expect the unexpected.""

"Ah, yeah, thanks."

"And because I'm going to observe you~."

Huh? What are you goi-

* * *

Kotomi's soul disappeared before his thought is finished, sending him back to his body. Black looked to the place where the soul used to be, and then smiled a little. "Well, best be looking for him now."

"Where are you going?" Komachi asked the fairy.

"Didn't I just say it out loud? I said I'm going to look for him. He's a good subject for me to be observed."

"Answer my question first, and then I'll let you go."

"What makes you think I will stay?" Black crossed her arms on her chest.

"Because I will use force in order to do so." Komachi took out some Spell Cards.

Lily Black scoffed at the threat that was sent to her. "That's not going to make me stay, and I never used any Spell Cards. I prefer doing anything without force, and you can't force me to stay here."

"Oh, bark only, no bite, huh?" Komachi taunted her. "Well, I guess that's what I can expect from a fairy."

Black instantly clasped her hands in front of her after hearing the taunt, but particularly to a single word rather than towards the entire taunt. "You'll regret ever giving me calling me the same as those species, Komachi. I'll give you some time to apologize, or I'll make sure you have a scar that will never get off from that pathetic memory of yours."

"Ooh, scary," Komachi said, definitely asking for a fight. "Come on, bite me, fairy."

"You'll definitely regret calling me that!" Black said, and spread both arms wide from where they were earlier, forming a pitch black scythe. Grabbing the handle with the right hand, she lunged forward soon after, aiming to strike Komachi right from the start.

"You have sure has the guts to fight a shinigami head on without the Spell Card rules, I give you that." Komachi remarked as she prepared to block her attack. She managed to do so, in the cost of being thrown backwards several meters away. This took her by surprise, and before she can even grasp what just happened, Lily Black grabbed her by the face, and threw her towards the ground so hard that she created a three meter wide crater, and with still enough force to send her flying more than five meters into the air.

Ignoring the enormous pain being sent throughout her whole body, she took flight at the peak of her bounce, and looked at the devastation. The patch which she was sent flying was now withered, as if the flowers and grasses don't have enough water so long that it turned the withered ones really dry, and the crater was almost twice the size of her height.

"This is definitely wrong… She can't be-" Her thought was cut short as Black caught her by the leg, and threw her towards the nearest tree. The shinigami skidded in the air, but managed to stop right in front of the tree, and went out of the way as Black tried to use her scythe to cut her in half, but only managed to cut the tree instead.

Komachi took the chance to attack, but as soon as her attack was about to land, Black disappeared from her view, as if she was never there in the first place.

"Huh? Where did she-KYAAAA!" Her monologue ended after getting a diagonal slash from Lily's scythe, sending her rocketing forward, and bouncing the grass several times before she crashed to a rock.

"Uuugh… I totally underestimated her…" Komachi thought, and tried standing up. She failed to do so by her own, so she used her scythe as her momentary walking stick. Lily Black landed several meters in front of her, and that's when Komachi realized the fauna near the not-so-fairy withered immediately. "What the…"

"Where's that smug talk of yours now huh?" Black said as she dropped the scythe, said scythe disappeared immediately after it landed. "Looks like you can trash talk only earlier. If you took some time understanding my name and why I and Lily White looked almost the same, but with different name and power, you can get the idea why I never liked doing anything by force, since my nickname has quite a meaning."

"What do you mean…" Komachi asked, but got silenced by a finger from Black.

"That's up to you to decide." Black turned her back towards the shinigami. "Oh, maybe I'll give you a hint. My nickname had the some relation to a widespread disease in Europe. I hope you know what that means, ufufu."

Black flapped her black wings, and immediately disappeared, looking for the soldier. Komachi wondered what that hint meant. "Disease… In Europe… When is that? Does she mean the Black Death? Wait a minute…"

"KOMACHIIIII!" A thunderous yell was heard from afar, making Komachi wince just by hearing it.

"Black Death… where thousands died by a disease… What is she implying about her by that?"

"Komachi! You… What happened here?" The highest judge of paradise, Shiki Eiki, stopped after looking the surroundings and the damage that Komachi took at her back.

"It's a rather long story, boss…" Komachi said with a sigh. "I'll make it short."

* * *

At the same time as the two started fighting, in Makai, it was different.

Sitting in a small room with red paint, tiled floor with red colors too, was Shinki, the goddess of Makai, reading a newspaper from Gensokyo. She has light blue eyes, white hair, and wears red robes as her main clothes with white at the outline of the dress, and on it had red zigzag pattern, with a small red dot inside the spacing. Some portion of her left hair was also tied in a side ponytail style. Beside her was her sword throwing maid, Yumeko. She has yellow eyes and also yellow wavy hair, and wears a red and white maid outfit. The room they were in was a small modest room with some normal looking bedroom furniture. There was a table, some chairs, a round clock, a mirror, a large cupboard, and most certainly, a bed with an occupant in it. Guess who the occupant is.

"Hmm… This person certainly looks like a strong one if he can manage to survive a large mass of youkais that much, even if this person was using a long range weapon." Shinki said aloud while folding the newspaper. "Anyway, is our guest wakes up yet?"

"Not yet, mistress." Yumeko answered. "It'll probably take the test subject some more time to wake up, but it should be soon now."

"*Cough* *Cough* Argh, okay, reincarnating hurts a lot."

"Well, your words certainly have some charm in it." Shinki said as she giggled.

"Huh? Where am I now?" The test subject, no other than Kotomi, asked.

"You're in Makai now, my dear child." Shinki likes to call her test subject as her children. "Do you feel okay now?"

"Well, I certainly didn't expect to be in some sort of demon world now." Kotomi murmured while massaging his back. "And goddamn, the pain even got transferred after I get reincarnated. And what did you call me again, "my child"?"

Shinki nodded. "You are under my supervision now, Kotomi Horikawa. And again, welcome to Makai."

"I'm not sure if I should feel happy that I'm alive again or I should just stay dead back there."

"Why don't you get up from your bed now?"

Kotomi just shrugged as he went to the side of the bed, and then stand up there. Shinki looked at him closely, inspecting every single part of his body.

"Hmm, pretty interesting… Looks like the virus I injected you needs some time to be activated."

"Uhh… Virus?"

"Yes, a special kind of virus I made myself after playing the games your world created. I must say, you humans have some creative minds to make weird things, and certainly a lot of blood into a game."

"Please don't tell me the game had anything to do with anything related to a shape shifting virus…"

"Oho, but it is where I based it on." Shinki said as if it was no big deal.

"Great, so I'm an Alex Mercer wannabe now…"

"Not just a wannabe, you far surpassed him, my child."

"Uhh… in what aspect then, oh mother?" Kotomi can't help but to snark at the last word, but Shinki didn't pay it mind.

"Well, if that virus was a virus in human disguise, your virus is only a part of your body, since the virus I made was special on its own. You're a third human, a third virus, and a third demon, since I injected some of my genes and some of my children into the virus."

"Oh great, so now I'm a humanoid demonic virus, then? Great, that certainly far surpassed a humanoid looking virus."

Shinki nodded again. "But of course, I put quite a lot more upgrades into the virus shape shifting capabilities, and you certainly wouldn't have to consume humans in order to get any new capabilities."

"You forget the infected part."

"We don't have any infected here, Kotomi."

Kotomi shrugged, since he expected that answer. "Anyway, what's the upgrade you put into the virus?"

"Well, I made it so that you can practically change into anything, not just some armor, close range weapons, and disguise. Most notable was the increase in your physical strength, so that you're now the equivalent of the Blacklight using its musclemass."

"So I'm going to make people into a bloody mess if I as much as punch them?" Kotomi cut her.

"No, that's not going to happen, just the strength, but you're not going to make them into a bloody mess just like that."

"That's a relief." Kotomi let out a sigh of relief after saying that. "So, what else?"

"Well, the shape shifting abilities can now turn you into anything you want, alongside changing the material of your body, so you don't have to use your "biomass"."

"As if I have any." Kotomi rolled his eyes. "And anything I want, so you mean I can turn into a tree or something like that?"

Shinki only nodded as an answer.

"And what's this changing the material of your body? Does that mean I can turn into freaking steel?"

"Yes, pretty much that or any other material you want. And your body regeneration is also doubled, so don't worry about dying."

"I died earlier." Kotomi said in a matter-of-factly fashion.

"Oh, that's because of an immortality potion I added in the mixture."

"…Immortality potion? Did I hear that right?"

"You heard that right. You can die, but you will be back if as much as a single cell is left from your body. And it looks like your virus counterpart is the one that had its ability opened to you right now."

"Oh, okay." Kotomi scratched his hair in confusion, but continued asking anyway. "So… you mean the demon part is still closed?"

"Yes, the demon part, if opened, basically will make your physical strength even stronger, and you'll also gain its magic power. But for now, you'll have to make do your virus counterpart, and it looked like it doesn't have any consciousness yet."

Kotomi rubbed his chin, thinking about all the possibilities and how invincible he was now. But it soon got disrupted by Yumeko.

"So, should I call the two of them now, mistress?"

"Oh, yes, I nearly forgot to give him a master to serve. Please call them both."

"I'll be back." Yumeko then went out of the room, calling the two magicians that would be picked by Shinki. Or that's how Shinki planned it.

"Master? So I'll have to serve someone?" Kotomi asked.

"Yes, is there any problem?"

"Well, I don't really have any problem with that. But…" Kotomi crouched as he stopped talking.

"But?" Shinki raised one of her eyebrows.

"They better beat me down first, only then I'll be willingly to become their… servant, maid, whatever you call it."

BRAK!

Kotomi jumped with enough force that send him straight into the upper floor of the room, and started running in the hallway (Since he got into a hallway). Meanwhile, Shinki just stared at the ceiling, dumbfounded. And then, she chuckled as Yumeko entered the room with the two magicians. Of course, Yumeko was shocked by the gaping hole at the ceiling of the room.

"Uhh… Mistress, what happened earlier?" Yumeko asked her mistress.

"Well, things didn't really go how I planned it. He doesn't want to be anyone's servant without proving that their master is capable of defeating him." Shinki answered, and looked at the two magicians. "Well, looks like one of you girls has to prove that you're capable of becoming their master."

One of them has yellow hair and the same color for her eyes, and wears a really dark red hat with a pink ribbon around it, and the same color for her dress too. She also wears black shoes and stocking that reached her thigh. The other magician has light blue eyes and blue eye, wears a light pink bow in her hair. She also wears a pink sleeveless dress, and short puffy detached sleeves that had the same color with her dress. She also had angelic wings that looked white if one's doesn't put enough observation skill to differentiate the really light pink color. Her wings can also turn into larger, white demonic wings if she's serious on doing something.

"Of course we will! Come on Mai, let's go!" Yuki, the one that wears the hat, said in enthusiasm.

"Coming." Mai, the other magician, shortly answered, even though with less enthusiasm.

Both magician then flew towards the hole, and then looked around, before they decided to go towards their left side, which is where Kotomi runs to.

"Say, should I help them, mistress?" Yumeko asked.

"No need, let them prove the soldier that they're worthy of becoming their servant. Well, one of them anyway." Shinki answered while waving her hand. "On the other hand, you can fix this hole instead."

"I shall do it, then." Yumeko bowed, and went outside again in order to get the things needed to fix the hole. Shinki looked at the hole in the ceiling for several more seconds, and went outside too, after saying these words.

"May luck be on your side, girls. At least one of you will have a servant."

* * *

(Kotomi's POV)

*Pant* *Pant* This should be far enough… And damn, I run really fast earlier!

The interior of this place really is rich with crystals. Damn, this place itself would make even the white house looks cheap, material wise. But why crystals, thought? And why does the air feel stagnant? Is it because I'm in a demon world now? Yeah, it could be that.

"Ah, there you are."

GAH! Who the-

"Geez, you're overreacting too much." Wait a minute, this voice…

"Black?" I asked while looking back, and found the culprit. "Sheesh, don't suddenly pop out of nowhere like that, you scared the hell out of me!"

"Ahahaha, sorry, sorry." She apologized. "It's kind of hard to trace you if you didn't have any particular magic leaking out. Lucky for me that you leave some weird particles in the air, so I can still trace you."

"Blame my virus for that." I said nonchalantly. "Anyway, what are you doing here?"

"Observing you~."

"Why?"

"Because I want to, that's why. One does not always need a complicated excuse to do something."

…Damn, that's a good excuse. But I need an exact answer, not that.

"*Sigh* You're right. But why, seriously? My curiosity is craving for an answer right now. Please~?" I said with a little bit of pleading. And I also put puppy eyes for better success in getting the answer.

"Oh alright, you look pitiful like that." Hey. "Well, since I never have anything good to do, I decided that I want to observe people that are interesting in my point of view. And you, Kotomi, are one of the very few to be observed by me."

"I'm not sure if I should feel lucky or not."

"You should feel lucky, since I don't like people harming those who I'm observing."

"So, in another words, a secret bodyguard?"

"Heavens no, only if you're in real trouble that I'll go down myself."

"I probably will have some troubles that I can't handle on my own in the future…" I scratched my temple. "But are you sure that you'll keep those words?"

"Of course I will." She then extended her arm, and also her pinky finger. "Pinky promise?"

"Sure, why not?"

I extended my arm, and then connected my pinky finger with hers, before both of us entwined it and then shakes both our hands down.

"Ehehe, promise is sealed~." She said with a smile.

I couldn't help but to get infected by her contagious smile. Seriously, this girl really likes to act childish. I wonder how she'll look when she's dead serious on something.

"Well, this is it." She suddenly said.

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"You'll find out soon enough." She left suddenly while giggling. I wonder what did she-

FWOOSH!

Holy-! That was close!

"I told you to be patient." Oh, so the challengers have arrived, huh?

"Well, I nearly hit him, at the very least!" Well, that one is a boisterous one. "Aren't you even going to do something?"

"Later."

Well, one of them was wearing a dark and white dress with a dark hat, while the other one was wearing a white sleeveless dress and white short, puffy detached sleeves. And the latter had the angelic wings on my dream. So if my hunch is correct, then I'll be her servant. Well, fate can't stay at the same thing, maybe it'll be the black magician.

"So, I take you're up for the challenge, then." I taunted them, preparing my own stance. "And don't expect me to hold back at all, okay?"

"We'll gladly accept it!"

"Bring it."

* * *

Yuki immediately spawned several fireballs and hurled them towards the soldier, but the latter simply jumped out of the way before he started reforming his hand into a machine gun and a shield. As another wave of fireball approaches him, he extended his arm and let the shield took the hit, before starting to shoot her using the machine gun. Where did he get the ammo? From his flesh. With each ammo, part of his was taken, and at the same time, it also regenerated at the same time almost instantly, and it continues like that.

"This is seriously so wrong in so many ways…" Kotomi muttered while looking at the chain of bullets that were made from his own body.

Yuki and Mai flew out of the way of Kotomi's gun before any of it can hit them, with Yuki immediately started spawning several more fireballs, this time with the aid of Yuki's sharp icicles, but every single projectile they threw towards the soldier either missed or hit the shield, so his body was effectively still in one piece by now.

Mai formed a blue ice sword on her right hand, and flew towards the soldier. Kotomi jumped out of the as the white magician nearly hit her, but this also makes him got hit from the back by the fireballs Yuki threw towards him. Kotomi cringed with each fire balls that hit him, but it'll take more than just that to take him out in his challenge.

Reforming his machine gun into a sword and modifying the shield so that he can also fire back towards both attackers, Kotomi lunged towards Mai, aiming for a hit. The steel sword met the ice sword, and surprisingly, the latter was still intact after the impact. Thinking that it would be hard to fight on two fronts, he immediately overpower the white magician, sending her flying several meters into the air. Mai skidded in the air, and flew towards the soldier again, this time with her hands making claw construct. The construct hit dead center right at the steel surface of the sword, and because of the momentum, it sent Kotomi skidding back several inches, before pushing her again, and started shooting Yuki with his gun/shield hybrid.

Yuki flew out of the way again, and started chanting something. As she chanted, some magic circles appeared behind her, all the while still dodging the supposedly not dodge-able shots (It's a bullet, people, even if it was made from flesh). After several more second worth of chanting and dodging, there are six circles behind her, and as she opened her eyes, she pointed her finger towards the outsider, the circle glowed briefly before shooting large amount of fireballs towards the latter. Mai, seeing what her friend just she chanted, flew out of the way and went back to beside her before the fireballs "eats" the outsider.

Kotomi felt as the fireballs went past him and hitting his shield, but instead of getting out of the way, she changed the sword construct into cannon. Artillery cannon.

"Eat one-oh-five HE shell!" He shouted as he blindly fires where the fireballs are coming from, some nearly missing them, some outright missed the two magicians. One shell landed where the space between them, and it exploded in such a way that Yuki lost her concentration that dispelled the magic circles, while Mai simply cocooned herself with her ice.

The attack didn't stop, however. With the fireballs no longer obstructing his view, Kotomi changed his cannon into a more powerful, one hundred and fifty millimeters in diameter. He planted his feet towards the floor, and shoots once, the recoil sending him away several meters away. However, unlike the last one, this flew at high speed and rammed the ice, promptly making it explode and create a thick cloud of dust.

"Well, holy shit!" Kotomi said in awe. "No wonder this kind of caliber was used for artillery!"

But his "rest" didn't last long, as Mai, now in her serious mode, comes out from the cloud of dust, her hands covered in blue ice, managed to land a hit at the soldier. Even if his feet were planted even deeper, it didn't help him to stop him flying into a column of crystals. She didn't finish there, however, as she struck him again so hard, he was send flying into another column after his body obliterated the column he was hit first before.

Kotomi shook his head as his body was sending pain signal, and barely manages to get out of the claws way. He changed his feet into jet engines with wings planted beside it, and took into the air, her one hand changing into a Gatling gun, his other hand still in his shield form.

"Well, you sure took me by surprise there, but let's see how you handle this!" Kotomi zipped past her, but face planted into another column that he failed to see. "Ow!"

Yuki flew out of the now clearing dust cloud, her fist on fire, and slammed it to the other side of the column. The fist went straight through the column and hit Kotomi squarely in the face, which was send towards the wall as Mai slashed her again. Kotomi shook her head, and flew out of harm's way as Mai nearly stabbed him with her claws, now stuck to the wall. However, it didn't took her long to pull her arms back, since she dispelled her claw that got stuck, and took the air again as missiles slammed into the wall, obliterating the wall. She changed her claw-free arm into something resembling what Kotomi's Gatling gun, and fired sharp icicles from it. Kotomi retaliated with his own gun, sending flurry of bullets that overwhelms the icicles in an instant.

Yuki didn't waste the moment as she punched Kotomi at the back of his head, making his gun pointed downwards. Without wasting another time, she kicked him to the incoming icicles, and he promptly got stabbed in several places, most stabbing his body. Yuki cringed with each and every icicles the hit him, especially when one went from the back of his and went out from his mouth.

"Mai, stop, you're killing him!" Yuki shouted to her friend.

"Mother says he's immortal, so why stop?" Mai said while still shooting her icicles. "And he himself told us to go all out."

"But I'm not used to your cold-hearted ways!"

"Hmph. Very well."

Mai stopped shooting her icicles, and soon after, Kotomi crashed to the ground, both girls followed suit. Kotomi took the time to change his missile pod-earlier-shield into his arm again, and pulled out one from his mouth. The rest of the icicles, however, got sucked into his body.

"*Cough* *Cough* Okay, okay, I admit defeat. Damnit, Mai, you truly lived your ways as an ice magician. *Chuckle*" Kotomi weakly said, admitting defeat.

"So, what did mother told us to do when we defeat him?" Yuki asked her friend.

"I don't remember." Mai said while crouching, and removed some hair from Kotomi's forehead. "Do this, maybe."

She touched her forehead with Kotomi's forehead, and a spark made its way from Kotomi's forehead into Mai's. Yuki took her time to remember it, while her friend was doing it.

"Ah, yes! That! Wait a minute… Mai!" Yuki shouted when she remembered what her friend just do.

"Hmm?" Mai looked to Yuki while standing up. "You sure took your time to remember it."

"Hehehe, nice trick there, mistress." Kotomi blurted out. "Wait a minute, why did I just call you that?"

"Probably because we're master/servant now, Kotomi." Mai said, and remembered something. "Wait a minute… I'm not this talkative before."

"Probably the side effect." Kotomi let out a laugh as he stands up again. "Anyway, where to now?"

"Congratulations to you, miss Mai! You just won yourself a servant capable of shape shifting into anything that have a dormant demon inside his body, and won't leave your side until you died!" Black chimed in all of the sudden, and patted her back.

"B-Black-san!" Yuki said in surprise. "When did you get here?"

"Ow…" Mai simply said while rubbing her back.

"Me? I'm watching the fight the entire time. Surely, if he didn't stupidly ram himself into that pillar and can control his powers better, you'll be in big trouble!" Black answered Yuki's question, which got a glare from the soldier, but blatantly ignored it. "So, how's the ice taste, cold?"

"Really cold. And totally hard to be consumed." Kotomi answered nonchalantly. "Is that ice made from something that shouldn't be unbreakable?"

"Yes, it should've been." Mai answered this time. "That's why you didn't break my sword and claws, since I made them to be unbreakable."

"They'll still break if I'm the one in the fight." Black said, sporting a not-amused look by Mai.

"So, anyway…" Yuki said. "Why are you watching us fighting? Surely, there must be a reason for that."

"Of course there is a reason for anything." Black answered. "It's because I'm observing him right now~."

While Black's attitude of answering looked like an innocent child, it still made both Yuki and Mai's shivered in fear when they heard the answer, which made Kotomi confused.

"What's wrong with her observing me?" He asked innocently.

"Mai."

"I know."

Kotomi just scratched his head in confusion, and then shrugged. "So, mistress, what are we going to do next?"

"Well, we inform mother about who becomes your master." Mai said, and reluctantly looked at Black. "So, you're going with us, Black-san?"

"Sure, why not? I haven't seen Shinki for a few years. Maybe she'll treat me like a princess again~, but after I finished doing something."

Both Yuki and Mai would like to let out a sigh, but they don't have enough courage to do so. They both walked down the hallway, followed by the soldier seconds later, Black having just teleported somewhere else. Kotomi took the time to think about his teammates that he left (Accidentally), and sighed, and then looked up while saying something.

"I wonder how things are doing in at the base…"

* * *

Author's note : Like I said earlier, I'm going to make the outside world's part after this (If I remembered. Hope I did, though), and Kotomi's power was heavily influenced from... guess where. As always, reviews and critics are welcomed.

Next Chapter : Top Secret Information


	6. Top Secret Information

Author's note : This is what happens when I have too much free time (probably), and a whole lot of (weird) imagination. And I also didn't forget about the outside world soldier's part. This chapter will contain some talk about Him, and as such, be ready to have some religious things talked here, and a totally made up explanation about Lily Black's (Incomplete) power explanation (Which also had some history stuff, which I may be wrong. And also, I think my explanation is somewhat right too). I hope this is a good chapter!

Note: Contains a one sided battle.

* * *

Gerald sighed as he sat down on one of the chairs presented in what looked like a meeting room, followed suit by Jack (Who no longer uses his juggernaut suit), James, Frank, and Clark beside him, also some higher looking generals in the room. It was not a secret that Kotomi's sudden disappearance from the training camp will spread like a wild fire. His tracking device, which would emit signal from where he is towards a radar, is nowhere on the radar when they used one. They didn't even bother trying to reach him through the radio when his tracking device showed no response, and the search team, which practically consists of all the team that took the training, has search every single nook and cranny the forest had, for three hours straight, only to get out from the forest with leaves and dirt, bearing no result. And this, of course, made its way even faster to the higher generals.

"Seriously, what the heck happened to that pal?" Clark broke the silence, silently. "He just ran straight to that forest, and all o' the sudden, poof, he vanished!"

"We do not know what happened, or how that happened, and it's up to our statement and memory to make sure that we do not have anything to do with this." James said while resting his head on his hand. "It is up to that, and the Gods to help us."

"Or I could simply use my camera when things went downhill for us." Gerald piped in.

"Wait a minute, you said a camera?" Clark asked, genuinely surprised.

"Yes, it is using that I could know what's going to happen next, and how my team is constantly beating you up every time we have team training like this." Gerald answered, and his expression changed into an annoyed one. "Until that person and his team came. On the first times, it would be normal for a person to lose to someone they don't know, but after several more days, as time passes by, and training after training, that I never met a team that's this… careful on doing things. I never came up with a plan that could counter his plan. While you guys barely change plan, especially you, Jack, the newcomer always, always change his plan, without forgetting the essence of their team."

"Surprise effect, evasiveness, and unpredictability," Clark muttered the rest so low that the others didn't hear it.

Gerald nodded. "It is that essence that made his team special, a one of a kind in our group. Sometimes, he just throws a lot of flash bangs towards us, let his team do the killing, and went out from their spot, silently. That itself barely provide me with a long enough coverage on how his plan is, and after we used black face shield, he suddenly jumps up and throws a lot of smoke bombs. And then there's the part that he blatantly made bushes around me rustled, taking everyone by surprise, and all of the sudden, all of us was killed. I can never come with a plan to counter his. His plan doesn't make any sense for those that are used to rigid planners, and would need a really good and fluid commander to expect him doing something unexpected."

"Which happens to be himself." Clark muttered again, and then sighed. "And don't forget that he can pick up even the slightest sound our boots made when we walk. That totally took our advantage, and pressed his advantage even further. Not even the last training are we able to win, even if we outnumber them one to six."

"And that's without their leader in charge. Truly, his team lives up to be called the ninja team." Gerald said. "Anyway, you got anything to say, Jack? You've been quiet all this time, even quieter than usual."

"No." Jack said immediately.

"Figures."

The door of the room opened, and with it, came out an old looking man, somewhere between the age of sixties. The room immediately went silent as the man came in, obviously someone important, which made even more blatantly obvious that he had many stars and medals. He took his seat on the far end of the table, and rested his chin on his hands. He eyed the room, and sighed. "MIA case again?"

"Yes, sir. Kotomi Horikawa, from "Ninja Division", as the other team called it since he doesn't have a specific naming, was lost five hours ago in the forest, not sooner after brawling five of the group leaders from the training group." One of the lesser generals stood, read his report, and sit back down again. "That would be all."

"Any other news?"

"Apparently, after all of them came back, and surprisingly, Kotomi's team was the one who won the match, the five of them want to check his position in the radar, since one of them claimed he was missing. When they looked at the radar, all of the dots that are present are only the one near the camp, and they looked somewhat somber before he told the radar operator that Kotomi was missing. After three hours of fruitless research, they decided it would be best to told us, hence why we're here now." Another general made the report.

"Hmm… Are those five present now?"

"Yes, sir!" All of the five answered immediately.

"Be honest, do you know where he is?"

"No sir, we do not know where he is right now!"

"What did you do to him before he went missing?"

"We ganged up towards him, sir!"

"You didn't do anything to make him lost, right?"

"That… do we even do anything to make the pal lost?" Clark asked.

"Dunno. He just ran straight into the forest and poof, vanished, as you said." Jack answered.

"Well, you did make him run into the forest, Jack…" Gerald began. "But then again, we're pretty much on the same position, still."

"Hmph. He simply went on his instinct. Don't blame me." Jack defended himself.

"Got to agree with you," Frank piped in. "He's doing that just on instinct, I think…"

"Well, I certainly wouldn't be saying that we made him lost, but it also feels wrong to say no…" James said while scratching his temple. "So… we don't know how to answer that, sir."

The others simply nodded, following the S.W.A.T commander's answer.

"What do you mean by "vanish"?" The general raised an eyebrow.

"We still don't know about that ourselves, but if you want to, I can give you footage of what happened during the training session. I have it in my camera, which is on my helmet." Gerald offered.

"Very well, show it, then. You, bring the projector and laptop." The general pointed towards one of the soldier near the door. The soldier nodded, and went out of the room, while Gerald went out too to take his memory card from his camera helmet. It didn't take long for both of them to come back, and another one that followed the soldier to bring him the projector. The soldier put down both the laptop and projector close by, pointing towards the white walls of the room. One random person in the room took the liberty of switching off the light. The only light source now comes from the laptop.

Gerald gave his memory card towards the soldier that was operating the laptop, as the other soldier turned on the projector, and were adjusting the width so that it would be the clearest. Gerald then took control of the laptop, and looked into the folder of the memory card, and clicked a video file that was the most recent. The video start as he and his team went into the forest, but Gerald simply fast forwarded them where he thinks is right, and stopped when he saw the opening. He set the time of the video backwards a bit more, and let it play from there.

"[You missed.]" Jack's static voice from the video was heard through the radio, in which another particular person groaned from behind.

"[Hey, we're running, and he's weaving through the tree as if he was rubber! How the hell am I supposed to make sure it hit him?!]" Frank shouted to the radio.

"[Looks like there's an opening up ahead,]" James said, and up in front was indeed an opening. [We could use this to our advantage.]

The camera shook downwards, an act of nodding made by Gerald, and simply ran faster, followed suit by the others. Jack was the slowest, of course. When they approached the opening, the camera started zooming in and out, as if trying to adjust something. At first, the group in the room paid no mind to it, as maybe it was to get better focus, due to increase in distance. That, however, didn't last long as the camera started zooming in and out frantically, as if something was playing with it. And the trees started to look shinier, as then, out of nowhere, was a transparent dome that doesn't have a top, and one particular spot had a hole in it. Inside the hole was a forest that's even thicker than those behind the barrier.

"What is that?!"

"Is that a barrier?!"

"How the hell can we didn't detect that thing?!"

"Call in the scientists! This is serious shit right here!"

The racket went on as the five of the team generals went jaw dropped and eyed wide at the projector. Some even rubbed their eyes to see if this wasn't a dream. And to add gasoline into fire, a woman figure with nine fox and traditional clothing floated down towards the hole. The tail was moving as if it was a part of her, and to everyone's surprise, the woman looked at the tail as the tail opened, and a child was inside it. However, that didn't last long as the woman closed her tail again, and started focusing on something, the hole mending itself, and fast. This one was happening while James and Kotomi was fighting, and Gerald was moving towards Kotomi's back slowly, trying for a sneak attack.

"Is that a kitsune and a child?! I thought they former is not real!"

"And I thought I could see a kitsune on that boy and in its fox form!"

"And did she just float down towards the hole?!"

The ruckus went on, and the general didn't even bother telling them to shut up. He was quite surprised himself to see a barrier that large to escape their radar, let alone, no one had successfully made a barrier, and now, there was one, and a really big one. And then, their real mystery was solved when Kotomi accidentally entered the hole, and just when he went past it, the hole closed, and the camera immediately started zooming in and out frantically again, and again, while doing so, the environment seemed to change, as the trees looked normal again, and the dome, like when it appeared, disappeared, as if it wasn't even there in the first place. Which, at the same time, was when James broke the silence after Kotomi went through the hole.

"[Did he… just disappeared out of thin air?]"

"[He probably went ninja mode.]" Clark said, jokingly. "[But yes, I think he just… disappeared out of thin air.]"

"[We better "kill" him now.]" Jack said coldly, forgetting the fact his enemy just disappeared.

"[Uhh… I head a beep when he ran there.]" James said. "[Before he disappeared, that is.]"

"[We better look for him. After all, he is "killed" while running there.]" Gerald spoke.

Everyone nodded, and the ones that are lying on the floor stand back up again. The five team general didn't want to look at what happened next, and went out of the room, before another ruckus was made, as the five of them… simply passed where the hole was earlier, and was not blocked by the transparent barrier from earlier.

"What's the meaning of this?!"

"How the shit did they simply passed there while he disappeared?!"

"Calm down, now." The general spoke finally, and the room didn't go quiet after five seconds worth of waiting. He exhaled his breath, and spoke again. "This is something we haven't seen before, and nothing we've encountered before, as such, it is best to be at precaution, and took things calmly. And in order to break that barrier, does anyone have a suggestion?"

Not a lot raised their hands, and the general decided to randomly pick one at a time.

"You, what's your plan?"

"Nuke it."

"No, you just saw that those five went past the barrier, and you know well the consequences of just nuking things to solve problem." The general sternly said, and randomly pointed another one that raised their hands. "You, how about you?"

"Uhh… I was thinking the same earlier… but how about the rail gun?"

"That's still in testing, and that will take a lot of time in order to build it, so it was out of question. It was, however, a much favorable one. And you, how about you?"

"The thermobaric gun." He said, and before the general speaks about his opinion, he said again. "It was a transparent barrier that can be passed by something solid, right? And thermo baric gun, as we have seen from several testing, was a weapon that had ammunitions that can suck the air into a vacuum, and released in the form of a heat wave. If it can destroy almost anything it hit in an instant, and still have the power to suck nearby things and throwing them off like they were nothing, it's a much seemingly successful one, right? Maybe we can strain the air around the barrier, and as the result, it will create a hole on it after the explosion."

The general rubbed his chin in a moment, and nodded. "That's quite a good reason to use it, and it was much less money consuming than the rail gun, and also a lot safer than nuking it, so we'll go with that one. But I'm still open to suggestions, so does anyone have a plan?"

No one raised their hands. Even the ones that raises earlier went down, since some of them are now doubtful about their way, and some was already spoken. The general waited several more seconds, and sighed. "If everyone doesn't have any other idea how to do it, then we'll go with the thermobaric one. You're in charge of the preparation, and I'll speak this matter to do government to give you the money you needed."

The person that the general pointed nodded. "I shall do my best to see if this will work."

"Okay, dismissed." The general simply said, before he stands up, followed by the others in the room, and all went out of the room. The one that gave the person the idea simply smirked as he can finally make one his own things, while not swaying from the purpose of his earlier plan too.

"I can't wait to see my new baby! You will be the most advanced, and feared tank in the whole world!" He thought inside his head, and also laughed maniacally inside, while he was only smirking on the outside.

* * *

Shiki Eiki walked inside the halls of the Ministry of Right and Wrong. It was a place where shinigamis, yamas, and kishins were to go when they needed something or when they were holding a meeting, or simply other things, and this was no exception. Eiki knew pretty much everyone in Gensokyo, as she was assigned to be there, and was also the one of the strongest yamas in the ministry, if not the strongest. The fact that she doesn't know one person irritated her a bit, and that person that she doesn't know, somehow beat Komachi in a non-spell card fight, in less than a minute, as Komachi told her, and that the damage the shinigami took was not healing properly.

She turned to the left when there's an intersection, going towards a person, a really old one that she knew well enough that the person can help her when she needed information about someone. She went to the right, and noticed a large door, guarded by two shinigamis.

"Ah, miss Eiki. What purpose do you have with him?" One of the guards said as he took notice of her figure.

"I need some information about someone. It seems that someone went into the border again, or is pretty elusive enough to hide from my presence." Eiki said calmly.

"Ah, information, I see. Very well then, we shall inform him." The guard then knocked door several times. "Mister Judge, Miss Eiki needs some information about a new someone in her area of responsibility."

"Let her in, if that's what she seeks." The man called Judge said, and the guard opened the door, letting Shiki Eiki in.

The room was by no means small. It was filled with books, magic tomes, forbidden books, scrolls, and much more. If it were to be compared with the voile, it would look the voile as if it was nothing. Well, being owned by the yamas and all that. There, in front of Eiki, was a table with three chairs, one was behind the table, with an old looking man sitting on it, writing something. His white hair indicated that he was already old, and that his somewhat long white beard was also an indication, and his clothing resembles almost the same as Shiki Eiki, only that his blue was black, and without ribbons. But despite looking old, he basically knows almost everything in the world, from the darkest secret a person can keep to himself, down to even the most embarrassing secret that one can hold within a person. Only things that lead to His information and angels were not present in the library, or are known by the Judge himself.

"Please, sit down, miss Eiki." The old man told the judge of paradise, and she did so. "So, what information do you seek now, miss Judge of paradise?"

"I need to know a particular person that is within the place of my responsibility." Eiki began.

Judge nodded in response, still scribbling something on a scroll. "And who this person might be, Miss Eiki?"

"If what my shinigami tells me right, this person wears almost exactly like Lily White, except that her clothing is mostly black instead of white, had red eyes instead of White's green one, and that she can from a pitch black scythe." Eiki told her what Komachi described.

After hearing that description, Judge abruptly stopped writing, his face almost swollen by his fear. "Ah… I'm sorry to say this Miss Eiki, but that's… a really confidential data that must be kept within the deepest part of the World Library."

Eiki know immediately, when Judge (I prefer calling him this, since I'm bad at naming people) says that it must be kept within the deepest part of the library, it must be something really secret, or something downright nasty that the others shouldn't know. But her power of seeing black and white, as in lie and truth, was telling black, but only in the form of specks. She knows people will most likely lie when being in consumed by fear, and this was no exception.

"While I know what that means, Mister Judge, I can't just wave that lie you just told me." Eiki looked visibly annoyed by someone that she knows very well is lying to her. "But I need to know this person, as she was inside my area of responsibility."

"I'm afraid I still can't, Miss Eiki. With all my respect, simply having her inside your turf was already something bad." Judge said again, his fear still visible, but Eiki found no lie in his words.

"I noticed. She fights my shinigami earlier, and this person didn't even get a single hit landed on her."

"That's not surprising, coming from her. She never liked force, but when she was provoked, or when she was taking things seriously, expect that person to try hitting her much rarer than finding a haystack in a mountain of needle." Judge closed his eyes, and opened down again, piercing straight through Eiki's own gaze. "And her over confidence is what makes up for it, but that itself was not enough to take her down. Now that I said this much, maybe I should just tell you who she is. She is-"

Judge's words were stopped when they heard shouting from behind, especially one that was a girl.

"But I sometimes visited here. Just when I thought I was going in with manners, that people stop me."

"And what do you seek in here, I ask again?!"

"Well, stuff."

"Oh by all the gods, that's her." Judge said as he stands up from his chair. "Miss Eiki, whatever you do, don't budge from that chair. I'm going to try to shoo her away from here."

Eiki knew what's better when Judge personally told her what to do, but his voice was usually full of confidence, and comes up with anything that might counter his words. To simply hear him saying the word "try" was already something bad, and he was not lying.

Judge walked past the judge of paradise, and went towards the door himself. He opened the door, only to find the judge was now arguing with no one.

"Oh da-"

His words never finished as someone pushed him from the back, tenderly enough to only make him step forward several steps. He turned when the guards turned, and the girl, in clad black clothing, looked at him with a smile, a genuine one. Before she slammed the door hard, and barricaded it with ropes, steel bars, sofas, tables, cupboards, pretty much everything that doesn't have anything to do with the library's content.

"Well, that should take care of them." The girl said while dusting both hands, and when she looked around, her red eyes met with Eiki's blue eyes piercing straight into her soul. However, rather than taunted, she was more mildly surprised. "Oh my, if it isn't Miss Shiki Eiki herself, one of the strongest, if not the strongest, judge of the dead. I didn't expect to meet anyone here, to be honest, just gonna take a look at some book, be done, and went somewhere else. Shouldn't take long, so don't worry."

"Who are you?" Eiki growled.

"Oh my, my manners must've died somewhere." She joked about it as if it was nothing. "My name is Lily Black, but you can simply call me Black, Eiki. It's a pleasure to meet you." Black introduced herself, not using the word "Miss" anymore. It was clear to Eiki, whoever this person was; she never really cared for anyone, if dropping honorifics after using it once was an indication.

"Tell me everything that's related to you." Eiki said.

"Why should I? I need to tend my stuff first." Black said nonchalantly.

"**Tell me everything that's related to you**." Eiki said, this time, downright commanding her.

"Okay, okay, geez, you look mildly scary like that Eiki." Black nonchalantly said, before she vanished from her view, and when she looked back to her front, Black was already there, sitting as if she was the owner. "So, everything?"

"Everything." Shiki Eiki confirmed.

Black cleared her throat first, and then began. "As you can see, my name is Lily Black, which is somehow a reversal of Lily White, a spring fairy. That's one of the first thing I recognized, and I keep wondering why me and her have almost the same name. And then, I discovered my actual, deep hidden inside the core of a core, my power. Say, what happens when spring comes?"

"People went flower viewing?"

"Well, somewhat right, but wrong in my answer. You see, when spring comes, winter dies, and it is basically two things happening at the same time. When a spring enters, a new year was "born", and at the same time, the late year "died", following the "death" of winter. It also applies on year, week, day, hour, minutes, second, and so on and so on. When they go forward, they can't step back. They were forced to move forward, each second "killing" another second, each minute "killing" another minute, and so on. And have you ever heard an event called Black Death?"

"Where many people died by illness?"

"Bingo. You're smarter than I thought. Yes, many people died by illness, by a disease spread by a mass of mouse, brought by a war that uses people's dead body that got infected by the virus. But history lesson aside, what do you see the connection between what I just tell you earlier?"

"They're related to death."

"Mmhm, one hundred points for you, Eiki. And what brings most death to people?"

"Are you going to keep asking me irrelevant questions?" Eiki was ticked off due to her seemingly unimportant question.

"Well, you said you want information, so I'll slide that one. War, wide spread illness, natural disasters, conflicts between people, and more, but that's some of the most death bringing things that can happen in this world. You see, my power is of death, and as such I have been blabbering about it."

"So, you bring death, like shinigami, huh?"

"I haven't finished yet, Shiki." Black hissed, but recomposed herself a second later. "Yes, I'm like a shinigami, but I'm more than them, but I have yet to know where my power comes from. My power went on a much, much larger scale. Where I use to kill the full power of my power, it'll kill all god, regardless what god, but don't go expect me beating Him. I'm knowledgeable enough that His power is enough to make my power looked atomic to Him."

"But god runs on faith. The more faith they get, the stronger they are." Eiki said.

"It's of no matter how many faith the god has, or how strong the god is. Shall I ever attempted to murder them, I can make it swift, but alas, I'm more accustomed in killing evil gods, but that never happened, which is better. If there is one that turned evil, either they succumbed by the joint force of several gods or they simply rethink about it. But that doesn't mean I can just sit around lazily and doing nothing. I keep training, working my power well, as well as my own body. It was a work of many, many years that I have forgotten how long were I'm training back then, but it was what made me today, with a tutor around the middle part of my training, and still is until now. And also, my power also has two more power, one is directly related, while one was related to my nickname. Tell me, Shiki Eiki, how long have you been trying to use your power to see your white and black, in order to spot my lies in my words, so that you can tell if I'm lying or not?"

"How did you know that?" Eiki asked calmly, even if she was clearly shocked. While it was no secret to almost everyone, to say that she was trying to see it, and that said person know it, was a huge surprise for her.

Black laughed heartily after hearing her answer. "Ahahahaha~, I expected that coming. No, really, when people are trying to use their power against me, and I tell them they're trying to do just that, I never get enough of those faces." She stopped her cheerful demeanor abruptly, and turned serious again. "You see, my power didn't only have the intention to kill almost anyone beside Him, it also blocks off ANY power used against me, and you, Eiki, are one of the cases I have to split my mind so that I have to personally power it myself. Usually, the power I released subconsciously was enough to end their power from reaching me, but there are still cases when I have to split my mind just to do so. It's annoying while explaining like this, and while I'm on rather short time, too. And I didn't even exert my power just to stop your power from reaching me."

Eiki then could see a speck of white, but that speck turned back again as Black momentarily let her see if she was lying or not. "I suppose you saw white just now, right?" Black asked, but pressed on with even bother waiting for an answer. "Yeah, of course you would see it. I'm not lying when I was talking about myself, not to you, not someone that asks me nicely, or, the rarest case, ever win a fight against me. But now power related to my name. You know that when there is enough of something, it will be good to someone, but if there's too much of it, they'll do harm to someone, right? Such is my name, Black. When you have too much black, in this case, darkness, you can't see anything without a light source, or you can see through the darkness yourself, and having too much white, which mean light, is not good too. If you stare at something that is too blinding for a long time, most people's case they'll be blind, and when they're blind, they can't see anything, in this case, light also brings darkness when there's too much of it. And in this case, I use the power of darkness to no one in this world has ever reached before, if I recall it right."

Black flicked her finger, and the room went dark. Eiki looked around, but there's nothing everywhere she looks, even if she were to put her hands in front of her eyes, she still couldn't see it. And just when she was wondering what's happening, Lily Black's voice echoed. "My darkness was only when I need things talked downright straight, Eiki. This is what I'll give them, a fake vision of nothingness, up to an extent that you can't even see your own hand right in front of your eyes. If the real does happen, you can see your hand when that happens, but that's not the case of me using this power. You have immortals in your place, right? I remember there's two or three, but you know better that that. This vision shall grant you the feeling of nothingness, helplessness, and loneliness. If you were to be thrown into the space where there's nothing inside it, you can't help but to feel those three, at least that's what happens to most people. And this is some sort of my personal dark space, too, but I rarely use this. This darkness is a total darkness, where nothing light and attempt to see in the darkness can ever see it. Night vision, heat vision, natural vision, or maybe, the boundary between light and dark, you name it, it won't do anything. Still with the exception of Him, thought."

"You know her?!" Eiki shouted in the darkness.

Black cackled after hearing the question. "Why of course I know her, and she doesn't even know me. If you don't know me, so what's the percentage of her knowing me? Next to none, that's how much."

A flicking sound was heard again, and Eiki regained her vision again. Black was now sitting with her hands on the table, and her head on her hand. Her red eyes are now gleaming. "Now that you know about me by that much, let's make a mutual agreement." Black stretched her hands towards Eiki, after changing her position. "Come on, don't be shy. This agreement won't one side to anyone. It benefits both of us."

BAM!

BAM!

BAM!

"I don't have all day, Eiki." Black said impatiently after several seconds. Eiki was still hesitant on doing it. She couldn't even know if the person in front of her was lying or not, due to her blocking her power. "Eiki…"

BRAK!

"Get your hands off her, intruder!" One of the shinigamis that barged in shouted. "Don't worry Miss Eiki, we will not let her lay a single hand on you!"

"Eiki, if you value those shinigamis to be able to kicking and running without injuries after this, let's set the agreement." Black said, her voice clearly meant that she will do whatever it takes to get the agreement. Eiki's hand didn't even budge the slightest, and Black's artery near her temple popped. "Consider that as a sin for you, Eiki, because after I'm done knocking out those shinigamis and those who are in my path, I'll make sure I make a forced agreement with you."

Black vanished from her view, and reappeared between the shinigami and her. "If you dare to come here, make sure you have your health insurance, because this will hurt, and will leave a mark." Black growled while cracking her hands. "As much as I hate using violence, if things demanded it, then I'm more than happy to do that towards anyone who is my enemy."

"She can't possibly win against them all…" Eiki though while still facing the table. Oh how wrong she was.

As on cue, several shinigamis rushed towards her, but before they even reached half of their distance, Black was already in front of them, and punched two of the shinigamis straight at the abdomen that they went straight back to the hallway, screaming in agony. She didn't waste time to let the shocked one to hinder her, and did a somersault kick towards the nearest shinigami, the receiver was sent flying like a ragdoll towards a wall, that when it hit, it left a mark on it. Eiki jerked her head when she heard the duo screamed, and got a good look on how one of the shinigami was flying to a wall.

Some managed to overcome their shock, and tried attacking her. Before it even hit her, she vanished, and sent one of the attackers flying towards the other as punched the shinigami right at the back, the now projectile-like shinigami bringing several more with it. Those that aren't got hit yet went back to the halls, trying to surround her from both sides, and Black bites the bait, although unlike other fish, this one didn't go down in a fight, and she wasn't even got hit, all the while dishing heavy damage towards the shinigamis. Eiki ran towards the nearest shinigami, and looked at their condition. It wasn't well for the shinigamis. Those that Eiki went to were spitting blood every time he coughed.

"Are you okay?" Eiki asked in concern.

"*Cough* I, I'm fine… but damn, that girls a powerhouse. The power of her punch… its even worser than her, and she's probably playing around with us." The shinigami answered weakly. "The way she throw her punches… it was holding back by a lot, and even she doesn't really hold out this much."

Eiki grimaced while remembering one incident when the ministry was attacked by a certain someone, and as a result, got a shinigami, and a powerful one at that. But she came here on a whim, just to tease people, unlike Black, which got serious business.

"Kishin! Call in the Kishins!"

"What is wrong with this girl?! She throwing us with just a punch and a kick, and we haven't even land a single hit on her!"

"GYAAAAH!"

"Naomi!"

Eiki looked at the ensuing battle, and grimaced at how someone was vending off that amount of shinigamis, since that was a lot more than when the ministry was attacked. A tap on the shoulder, and Eiki looked back, seeing the worried face of the Judge.

"Mister Judge…" Eiki began. "What is her? There's no way that she can be this strong."

"But I'm afraid she is this strong. She is a special case of shinigami and fairy. She is a shinigami fairy that doesn't have respect for most of the people she encounters, and I only know one person that she respects, except that I don't know how to call her personally, so I'm going to send a messenger to call her." Judge shook his head, and stepped aside as one of the shinigami was flying towards him. He whistled, and two pigeons landed on both Eiki and Judge. "Use this messenger to send your message. Use this pigeon to tell her, and go somewhere where she won't find you." He then whispered something, and his pigeon flies out from a nearby window, followed suit by Eiki's. "Let's try our best to buy her some time. She's a force that even makes our last attack we had looks nothing, and you can see how she was a bit damaged when the kishin came in to stop her, and downright stopped when you came personally to handle her. This one won't. Let's go."

Eiki nodded, and the two went into the one sided battle.

* * *

Black punched a kishin straight at his face, and send it flying away, before she vanished again, appearing behind one random kishin, and threw him like a ragdoll towards some more of their team. Some shinigamis tried attacking her with projectiles, but said projectiles was swatted like a fly, even if it was wind gales. Said projectiles doesn't even hurt a bit when she swatted them, as her arm that she used to swat the projectile was covered in black mist, protecting her hand from the projectile. She heard commotion, and saw that both Eiki and Judge went into the ensuing battle field, the former looking calm, while the latter was nervous.

"Please don't tell me you two are joining too…" Black said without a hint of tiredness. She was only using her massive amount of stamina, and just used a tiny fraction of her power to protect her arm from projectiles. Two of them nodded, and Black sighed. "Okay, all of you stand back. I know very well you won't hit me, and I need to concentrate on these two."

Black vanished from her spot, and reappeared behind the yama and librarian, before she grabbed them, and fling them towards different directions, and went straight to the librarian. The latter stopped in midair, and cried, "Laser cannon!"

After the cry was said, one cannon was materialized out of nowhere, and fired a thick red laser beam towards Black. Black simply covered her hands with her power, and ripped the laser when it reached her, said rip also went into the cannon, destroying it.

"Thermobaric bazooka!"

Like the first, a bazooka like gun materialized out of nowhere, and was held by Judge himself. He shot one of the projectiles, and Black, right on cue, materialized her black mist around herself, and simply covered the whole impact of the shell when it reached her, the following explosion muffled by her body.

"Are you mad?!" Black shouted in anger. "Do you know full the consequence of using that gun in this building?!"

"Of course I know! I'm just using whatever it takes to stop you!" Judge shouted back, and fired another one towards Black. This time, however, Black caught it with her mist covered hand, and flung it back towards the Judge at faster flight speed, and the Judge was forced to abandon his gun in order to get the speed he needed to get out of the projectiles way. But it didn't help him when the projectile hit the bazooka, as he was sucked in by the force that the thermo baric shell made after it impacted the target, creating some sort of vacuum, before dispersing it and everything near and inside the vacuum in an explosion, shattering every glass in the room. Judge rammed to a wall due to being also one of the things the vacuum dispersed, but only got a broken nose. Other than that, there was no visible damage.

"Quadruple Gatling gun!" Judge cried again, and this time, a turret with four Gatling guns appeared, and opened fire as soon as they find their target. Black quickly flew to the side in order to avoid getting hit, but at the same time, closing the distance between her and the Judge. When the former reached the gun, she punched it right before it can turn itself towards her, and flew towards the Judge.

"Nuclea-" His cries were cut short when Black slammed her fist straight at his face, further sending him to the wall, looking visibly pissed off.

"Do you want to irradiate this place?! Do you have to make all these people suffer just to get rid of me?! I don't care if all these people are mortals that die quickly, but these are resilient ones! They will get irradiated, and they will live with it forever if untreated!" Black shouted at the Judge, the latter was shaking his head to the sides.

"Sometimes, sacrifices have to be made. That's one of the general rules in the universe, and there's always one moment when you have to do it." Judge said while still shaking his head. "And don't you forget about someone?"

"You mean her?" Black asked back as she used her arm to defend herself from the rod of remorse that Eiki herself used to her. "Ow, okay I felt that even if I'm covering my hand with my basic defense. You truly live your name as the strongest yamanaxadu, Eiki. But this won't be enough to put me down."

Black then held the rod of remorse, which is quite heavy, even for her, and threw the rod towards the Judge, Eiki still clinging to the rod of remorse. She looked at them, looking down, to be exact, as she floated while watching the two struggled to stand up, not realizing that a shinigami was trying to do a sneak attack. Judge was the one that wake up first, and widen his eye when he realized the move the shinigami was going to do.

"NO! DON'T!"

The warning came too late, and Black failed to protect herself as she spun in order to deflect the incoming attack, the shinigami managed to horizontally slash her at the upper body, leaving a deep wound on her body.

"AAAAAAAH!" And of course, the reaction was one of what the rest of the shinigami would expect.

"Haha! Nice work!"

"That'll teach her not to… mess… with… us…?"

The proud situation turned grim as Blacks wound was regenerating itself at the speed they never seen before, as the large wound was no more there in a matter no less than three second. Even the clothes are knitting on its own while the body was regenerating itself.

"Run! Run if you still value your unharmed life!" Judge shouted at the top of his lungs.

Before the shinigami that attacked Black could even process what he just heard, Black was already in front of him, his scythe already thrown somewhere after being grabbed by her, and was looking at the very soul of the shinigami. All in the room felt a killing intent that even themselves never felt among some rampaging shinigamis, and without warning, the shinigami shot himself (From most people in the rooms point of view) towards the nearest wall, and leaves a body mark at the wall. Before he can even move an inch, he was already thrown towards the ceiling, crashing through it, and plummets down to the ground like a meteor. Just as he was recovering from the fall, he felt a knee to his gut so hard he was that he was rammed by something very hard and at high speed, while from everyone's view, it was Black that rammed her knee to the poor shinigamis stomach, sending a shockwave as she hits her target. Eiki was already on her legs when this happened.

"I never felt a killing aura this… stagnant before." Eiki said while looking at the one-sided battle.

"I came back to my senses too late when the shinigami was about to attack her." Judge said, his face showing guilt all over it. "If only I can warn either one of them, this wouldn't have happened…"

Eiki was about to ask before Judge continued. "If you are about to ask, Miss Eiki, let me tell you this. In expense of being this powerful, her body was… some of the unique ones in the world. She regenerates that not even the strongest being can ever hope to achieve, and that also applies to her clothes. While this is an invaluable asset for her, this comes at a cost. Costs that will make everyone that can hit her develop a special trauma towards her."

"What is this cost, Mister Judge?" Eiki asked while watching as the shinigami was punched straight at the face that the shinigami was crashing-and penetrating-several pillars.

"Her body's nervous system was amplifying her pain senses up to an extent that even a single painful poke felt like being punched hard at one spot." Judge answered, and winced as the shinigami crashed to another wall. "That's how bad the amplifying was. This also serves as her berserk button, one of the few that can hit her will learn to never hit the button again, and will never even want to face her again."

Another crashing sound was heard, and Eiki had enough. She flew towards the sound source, ignoring Judge's warning, and looked as the shinigami was now flying again, before being plummeted towards the ground, no one even have the slightest look of the attacker, but as Black was about to land another punch straight to the shinigami's face, and was at the same time when Shiki Eiki was about to tell to stop, a hand stopped Black's hand at the top of its height. The person has six angelic wings as the most striking part of… its ghostly appearance, having a light blue hair that reached knee length and has blue eyes, wearing a simple blue dress with long white sleeves. Its other hand was holding a strange staff, while the other one was holding Black's hand.

"I guess that's enough for now, Black-san." The being spoke calmly, but still struggling to keep handle of Black's hand. The struggle ended fast as Black recognized the voice.

"…Sariel-sama." Black said, lowering her hand. She turned to face the angel, and hugged the angel tightly. "I… I'm sorry… I went out of control again…"

"It's okay. That's bounds to happen to everyone." Sariel said calmly, her (I'll call Sariel by her from now on rather than it, since using "it" would feel weird to me, and since most of Touhou's character are female) other hand was now stroking Black's hair. At this time, Eiki landed near them in order to check the shinigami's life status. Much to her prediction, the shinigami was alive, although the shinigami looked like he was on the verge of being sent to see his own yama. She can't even tell which part gets the least amount of blow to the shinigami's body. At this time, Sariel noticed her, and decided to introduce herself. "Ah, Miss Eiki, it's a pleasure to meet you here, even if the situation is not what you can call even adequate. My name is Sariel, an angel of death to some, an archangel to some, and even a fallen angel to some, due to religious reasons, but I'm an angel to make it simple. I apologize in advance for Black's recklessness. She's quite a bit hot headed when things needed her, and from what I can tell from the shinigamis life hanging situation, he managed to hurt her. What a poor creature, to be on the receiving end of her rage."

"I know about you already, but why didn't you come here sooner?" Eiki spoke while looking straight to the angel.

"As much as I want to, I can't watch her all the time, or even for a short amount of time. Only when a pigeon told me what was happening in here that I rushed towards here as fast as I can. I apologize once again for that."

Black tugged Sariel's sleeve, and Sariel crouched to Black's height level, before Black whispered something towards her. Sariel furrowed one of her eyebrow, and nodded. Just as she told everything to Sariel, a purple gap opened near Eiki. As Eiki walked towards the gap however, Black caught her arm first. Eiki looked back, to see a grinning Lily Black. "Do you really think I forgot what I was about to do to you?"

Eiki furrowed as she noticed something crawled to her arms, and moved her view towards her arm, where dark runes was making its way across Eiki's body. Eiki tried to budge her arm off Black's grasp, but it stayed like that until the runes are all over her body, before it vanished. Black released her hand from Eiki's as the latter glared at her, and asked, "What did you just do?"

"Like I said, forced agreement. This agreement will make sure you never forget about all the things you know about me, and if you were to ever tell this to anyone before the spell vanished on its own, signaling that you can tell everyone you know about me. Of course, you can't tell anyone if they don't have the same seal, but in case you do towards someone that doesn't have the same seal, you'll die, no matter if you're immortal or not." Black said with a serious tone, and she herself makes sure that her power doesn't block off Eiki's power to see that she wasn't lying. Eiki was flabbergasted when it all showed white, without any speck of black in it. "And in order to give you the information that I myself doesn't know about me, Sariel-sama will tell you personally about me."

Eiki looked at Sariel, and the latter nodded. The both of them were all white, so Eiki sighed. "Fine, come with me then, we'll talk about this somewhere else."

Sariel nodded, and walked behind Eiki as she made her way to the purple gap in front of her. One last glance to her back, and she saw Black waving at her, before she disappeared, and Sariel was now in a room.

"I still find it hard to believe that your pigeon were able to found me, and that you're in trouble." A voice said. The voice belongs to the youkai sage herself, Yukari Yakumo. "And why is that angel coming with you?"

"Our messengers are special, and I invited her myself." Eiki answered nonchalantly.

"Ah, if it isn't the youkai sage herself, it is a pleasure to meet you." Sariel said, and stretched her hands to the youkai sage. Yukari looked at her carefully first, but accepted the hand in the end. Sariel formed a weak, sad smile, and said, "I'm sorry that I have to do this to you too."

Yukari raised her eyebrow, before she noticed something crawled on her hands. Without the intent of knowing what it was, she tried to do the same stunt as Eiki does, and with the same result. Eiki was more surprised about what the angel just did, and then about the same dark runes that Sariel casted towards Yukari. The runes covered all her body, and vanished. Sariel released her grip, and lifted her other hand before Yukari could do anything. "First of all, I didn't want to do that to you, but since this is Black-san's request, I can't turn it down."

"You take orders from her?" Eiki asked, a little surprised that someone like Sariel was following the shinigami fairy request.

"No, but its more to the fact that I know what's hidden inside her body, that I was doing this." Sariel answered with a weak smile. "What you just had earlier, Eiki, was barely the power inside her. It's only the tip of the iceberg."

"The tip of the iceberg? You can't be that serious." Eiki said in disbelief.

"But it is I'm afraid. And you better tell the youkai sage first, or she'll be left out in our conversation." Sariel reminded her.

Eiki then explained what happened until she needed Yukari's help. She basically told everything that Lily Black told her, and retells it towards Yukari. At first, Yukari had the same reaction when Eiki told her the exact same thing Lily Black told her, but as she kept explaining, Yukari found it even hard to believe it. But there she is, listening from the yama herself. And the fact that there's an angel with Eiki simply solidified the fact. Eiki also told her how almost all of the people in the ministry was curb-stomped, but after the explanation, Yukari was ready to face it. She believed that there's someone out there that is stronger than her, but someone to be able to take a lot of shinigamis and kishins and was winning solid were still out of the head for her. At the end, Yukari sighed, and Eiki too, since she had told someone she wanted to tell first. But now, it was only a secret for four people, and two was not under a forced agreement, while the other one had simply told them that her power was only the tip of the iceberg. Finally, Yukari spoke. "I still find it hard that she gave you a hard time too, Eiki. I mean, you're the most powerful judge in the ministry, and yet, she still beat you. In a non spell card battle too, at that."

"I'm not surprised anymore, and here the angel says that she's only using the tip of the iceberg." Eiki said. "So, what do you want to tell us?"

"I can't tell you now, since there're people watching us."

"Hey, don't break the-"

"I know, it's hard to fix, but it had to be done."

"You mean, we're being watched?"

"Yes, we are, from somewhere. But don't worry, they should stop watching us…

Now."

* * *

Author's note : Yes, Sariel broke the fourth wall, Yukari knows it, and Eiki simply didn't believe there were someone watching them when they're in the room. Of course, the reason was due to plot, and it will be explained at later chapter.

Next Chapter : Rescue Operation?


	7. Rescue Operation?

Author's note : I worked this chapter really fast due to the fact I remembered that Eiki is simply too powerful for anyone to beat, and this happened while I was thinking on how to fill this chapter. There will be a bit of discussion about that in this chapter. Anyway, that said, I hope this and next chapter will clear that up! (And also, since this is not supposedly to be posted this fast, I apologize if there's some part that needs fixing in this chapter. Also, the moment when I realized this was when I was looking at danbooru, and found that Eiki used Yuuka's own self to attack Yuuka, which made me remember a certain spell card.)

* * *

"Now that I have told you everything about her, I bid you farewell now." Sariel said with a bow, and she vanished from the line of view of Yukari and Shiki Eiki.

"Who would've thought about that…" Yukari murmured.

"We need to keep a close eye on her, even though I'm not sure about how are we going to do that when that happens." Eiki said while grimacing. "Anyway, I bid you farewell to Yukari. And made sure you don't stray into the wrong path again."

Yukari simply waved as Eiki flew out from the youkai sage's house, towards where she believed will lead her towards Higan. Yukari then put her usual smile, before she opened a gap, and went into it, towards destination unknown.

"So, mistress…" I speak up in the long, boring walk. "How do you know her?"

"Know who?" She asked back without even looking at me. Not that I was expected to be looked at, being now a servant and all that.

"Lily Black, of course. I'm curious on why you call her that." I answered, and I could see that she shivered when I said her name. Is she really that dangerous that she made her shiver just by the mention of the name?

"…It's a secret only us for Makai residents that participated in an event that took several years ago." She said sternly, but also a bit of fear was put into it. If this is an event that left a scar, then this should have some connection about something.

"Tell me, does this have anything to do with the word "war"?" I asked, and a bullseye too, since both my mistress and her friend, Yuki, stopped dead on their tracks. The fear they're emitting was too powerful for me to miss, and it's certainly not the right amount of fear you can put to a single person, except this person was very scary and downright powerful. I'll just make things a bit more… relaxed for now. "Don't worry, if you don't want to tell me, then you don't have to, mistress."

The two sighed in relief, and now I already have another question. "Mistress, I have another question, and this one is regarding you." Maybe if I can know her better, then I can think on how to be a good servant for her, species wise.

"What?" She answered in the most nonchalant voice I have ever heard in my entire life.

"What exactly are you? I know that your wings are real, and not made by magic. And if you're a magician, you would probably make the construct from ice instead of feathers, and the fact that it changed into large demonic ones only proved that you're not an ordinary magician. So, can you tell me who you are, mistress?" I surprised myself as I spoke that, since I barely knew anything about magic, and I speak about it like it was something I have studied it well enough.

"Well, I'm a magician, only that I'm not a human, unlike Yuki here." I knew it. "I'm more of an ice demon myself rather than a human, but that changed when Yuki came here in order to be a magician. Her determination is burning strong, and that's not a pun, I tell you that."

There was a hearty laugh that came from her friend as she patted her back. "It's more fun seeing you this talkative, Mai."

"It's the side effect of having a servant. I can't do anything about it." Yeah, like why I'm calling you with mistress instead of your name. Well, it's actually not a really bad thing too, you know. "Looks like we're here."

There, in front us, is a really, really, large door that I'm not sure how can someone open it just by thinking of the weight the door had. Not the largest one that I have ever seen but, I mean, seriously, that thing is like wider than the three of us standing in a tight formation, and is several heads taller than us, and it looked like it was made of steel.

"Now how are we going to open that?" I asked.

"We walked to it." Huh? What the hell are you talking about, Yuki? I'm not even sure if she means…

CREAAAAK.

…I can't believe that it really was an automatic door.

I keep my trail behind my mistress and her friend, and entered what looked like a massive spacing on what looked like a throne room. I mean, there's a throne with that woman (I forgot her name) sitting on it as if she was the owner (Or maybe she is), with that red white maid standing right next to her, and that's fine, really. What's wrong was that the room looked like it was an infinite expansion of a blue landscape with blue pillars jutting out into the distance, to god knows how much that it will end.

"Ah, you girls… and boys finally came back. So, who won the ultimate prize?" Shinki's voice echoed throughout the room, and I can't say that it doesn't make it really intimidating too.

"Mai did." Yuki spoke first before I can open my mouth. "After reminding me how to do it."

"That's just a clever planning from mistress behalf." I defended her. I mean, she's smart enough to do just that after reminding her.

Yuki pouted as Shinki laughed. And seriously, the way she laughs was unnerving me. If it wasn't because the sound that echoed from the entire… room. I'm not even sure if I can call this place a room, but the point is that the sound that echoed from all around us is really unnerving me. Maybe I should just ask her about it.

"Hey, uhh… how should I address you again?" I still can't remember her name. "Why's the "room" looked like this? I mean, is this a throne room or this is someplace else?"

"You can just address me with my name, Shinki. But if you want to, since you're now a part citizen of Makai, you can call me by mother." Well, just because I'm a citizen of this hellish place doesn't mean that you can just make everyone call you by mother. "And the reason for that is that because I'm the goddess of this place."

"The… what?" Did I just hear that right? Goddess? In front of my eyes?

"I'm the goddess of this place." Okay, I'm certainly not dreaming about this, since I just swallowed a load of ice (That still feels cold even after I changed their material), and that I can't die now. "And the reason why the room looked like this is because I wanted it."

God complex, huh? That's certainly an interesting complex that I made up on my own. It would have the description of having someone that had that complex are said to be able to achieve whatever they wanted, no matter how hard it is, and will do anything to achieve it. And it also covers superiority complex. But then again, she's a goddess, so having this complex is understandable.

KABOOM!

"What the?!" Okay, did the door just freaking-Whoa! Okay, flying huge metallic doors are not going to taste good if it was flying to my face. And I heard the sound of the metal crushed by something, which probably Shinki doing something that I don't even want to know.

Okay, one of the doors is blasted, and the other one was being held by its last hinges, and I can see… the miko and that oni from earlier, the former visibly looking tired, while the other was drunk, and was waving back and forth while flying. Looks like they had a rough welcome earlier.

"Well, well, if it isn't the shrine maiden and an oni. I'm surprised you can make it this far now, considering what I had set up as a defense measures to counteract you. I'm not going to be surprised if the oni did most of the job, considering how much defenses that I have set up." Shinki spoke calmly as the miko pointed her gohei towards her, the former not taunted by the slightest. Shrine maiden are like dogs for gods, after all.

"Shinki, release you prisoner!"

There was an odd, odd silence after the shrine maiden spoke that. I guess pretty much everyone in the room blinked, safe for the oni and shrine maiden, and Shinki then burst into laughing, my mistress and the maid only raised an eyebrow at the probably weirdest sight they have ever seen, including me. And who is she talking about prisoner, me?

It took several moments before the goddess stopped laughing and started making some more comprehensible words. "Who… who are you talking about? I don't keep prisoners around here." She finally made a comprehensible sentence too.

"Of course, none other than the only male in this room!"

…I should've expected this coming. Now how am I saying that I was now a servant to her face without making her beating the crap out of me? And the room was now dead silent again, no one laughed, or said anything. And then, Shinki cleared her throat.

"Well, if you want him to be freed, then you come here at worst possible moments, shrine maiden." Shinki said, and her tone of voice clearly said that she was only playing along. She's probably bored to hell (No pun intended) that she even played along. "You know how the rules are, right?"

"Yeah yeah, beat someone first, and get the answers later." The shrine maiden spoke nonchalantly at the goddess. Man, she sure has the… balls to something like that to a goddess. Even I wouldn't say something like that. "I've beaten two more goddesses, so I have improved a lot."

"Two goddesses do not mean a sword throwing maid, and fire magician, an ice demon, and a goddess that can create world, right?" Shinki spoke calmly, but with a hint of intimidating the duo. "And besides, you look tired already. You actually think you can win against all of us?"

"Yaaay, fighting, fighting!" The oni said happily. Damn oni and their habit of fighting. "Come on, Reimu, let's show them our combined power!"

"Yeah." The shrine maiden simply said, and formed two white and red yin yang balls, how very fitting to her clothes scheme.

As on cue, Yuki's hand burned with fire (literally), mistress's wings turned into her demonic one, the both of them had glowing magic circles of red and white below them, the maid somehow managed to slip four swords into the spacing of her finger, and Shinki suddenly have six purple demonic wings, and a staff out of nowhere. And I don't know what I should be doing right now. Should I help the Makai people, or should I tell her that I'm with them? The chances of things going wrong in a battlefield are too much!

"We are ready, shrine maiden." Shinki said. "Give me your best-"

"Shinki~! Little princess of yours is back!" This voice… it's hers alright.

Shinki pinched the bridge of her nose in annoyance, as the Makai citizen dropped all stances of fighting as the perpetrator of the battle, Lily Black, appeared while waving her hands. "You are not my little princess, Black-san, and I was about to do something awfully fun just now."

"You're no fun." She pouted, and then looked at me. That's when her eyes gleamed, a change in mood. And I don't like the way she looks at me…

"Aww, no fighting~" The oni said in disappointment.

"Ehehe, onii-chan!" She said while flying towards me, at high speed with her arms intending to hug me. Oh god, no…

"No, stay back, Black! Stay back! STAY BA-"

On that very day, in Makai, everyone inside Shinki's castle can hear a nightmare inducing scream, while everyone near the source of the scream can hear the horrible sound of many bones cracking at the same time.

Uuu… My ribcage… It's shattered into million pieces…

"Hey, hey, wake up and let's play something!"

"Black, you just turned my ribcage into a pile of mush…" And oh god, doesn't she have some sort of decency sitting just like that in front of my face? The only good (and disappointing) thing about it was that she was wearing black trousers as her underwear. "And I'm not your brother."

She pouted again as she stands up and stretched her hand, helping me to stand up. I took the hand and took the liberty to stand up on my own. If she were to make me stand up, I'm more than sure that my shoulder will get dislocated and probably also rip off my arm with ease. "No one wanna play with me…"

"How… How are you still alive?" The shrine maiden said in disbelief. Well, maybe she just accidentally spill me beans. "That should've killed you!"

"Long short story, I'm not a prisoner, and I'm a shape shifting immortal." I said quickly, and get an even more incredulous look from her. "And I have a master after having a battle." I turned to look at my mistress, and she nodded.

"It is true of what he just said. I'm her master, and he's my servant." She said matter-of-factly.

"Aww, no rescue operation, then…" The oni said again, before she drank the content of that gourd was, but I believe it is sake. "Then we just have to abduct you!"

I gulped after hearing what she just said. I might don't know if that's true or not, but to be abducted by an oni is not on my list to do things.

"And you, who are you, fairy?" The shrine maiden said, pointing her gohei at Black. I really need to know her name. "You certainly didn't look like her, and you also didn't look like any fairies I encountered earlier. Tell me, what kind of fairy are you?"

A purple colored barrier caged the shrine maiden and the oni as Black leapt towards them, but she bounced back from the barrier due to the barrier being shattered in just one hit. I could hear a grunt from Shinki, which is probably the one who summoned the barrier, and ice chains erected from all around my mistress to restrain Black, but each time she pulled either limb that was restrained, the supposedly unbreakable chains snapped, only to be replaced by a new one. And if I remember correctly, hell's fire was supposed to be hot, so this chain must be can't melt too. How did I know? Dante's Inferno, that's why. It had ice as the lowest circle of hell.

"Let go of me already! I don't care if she was the protector of Gensokyo, or someone important! I'm going to snap her neck so hard that it'll make her head looked like it exploded!" Black roared as she effortlessly breaks the ice chain and the ones that replaced it with a swing of her hand and leg. And damn, she looked really scary. I want my mood swinging Lily Black back!

"Don't! You'll endanger everyone in Gensokyo!" Shinki said as she erected another barrier around the rampaging powerful fairy that still let the ice chains in, but it was also effortlessly broken by just a punch from her hand.

"I don't care! I need to teach her a lesson first for calling me a fairy more than once!" She roared again.

"Wow, that's some strength that she got there! I like her already." The oni said with a smile. "Though her anger doesn't really make me want to go near her."

"You'll risk angering everyone in Gensokyo. Do you really think you will win against everyone in Gensokyo?" The maiden said calmly.

"I'm not scared of anyone! Bring the vampires to me! Bring the Myouren crew to me! Bring the Moriya crew to me! Bring everyone, even the lunarian if you want to towards me! I'm not scared!" Black roared with the same intensity. How much stamina does she have anyway? "If you want to, bring that gap hap of yours to me! Bring the yama too! I'm not scared of anyone! I'm only scared towards Him!"

"Calm down, Black-san! Yumeko, call Sariel, this one will need her full attention!" Shinki said as she made another barrier to be shattered in an instant again. "I don't know how long we can keep her in this state!"

The maid nodded, and she flew towards the door. Meanwhile, the oni was happily humming something (Due to being drunk, I presume) while the shrine maiden was still as calmly as she ever be. "You won't have enough Spell Card to beat anyone all at once. Do you really think you can win?"

"I don't care about that system! I don't care about anyone! If you're dead, they'll fight me with their full strength anyway!" She shouted as she broke all the chains at once, but it was replaced almost instantly. "I can beat a shinigami in a non spell card fight! Heck, I even rampaged in the Ministry of Right and Wrong earlier, and none of the shinigamis and kishins can stop me! Even Eiki herself came to stop me, but I also beat her anyway! And you know full well how strong that yama is!"

The duo went agape after the statement she just gave, and so am I. Did she really just say that she beat a yama, the judge of the dead, in a fist fight? Then my hunch of saying that she's not how she looked like is true. The room fell silent for the third time again as the only sound that was made was the sound of barrier shattering and reforming, and the sound of chains snapping and moving. Eventually, thought, both the sound calmed down as Black plopped down on the floor, seemingly tired.

"Okay, Lily Black, calm down… calm down… settle things without force… that's how you do it…" Black muttered really lowly that most people wouldn't hear what she just said, but I did. Having a really good ear helps in this kind of situation. "I can beat anyone if I want to, and I can behead any gods easily if I wanted to, uncaring how much faith they get and how strong they are… A shrine maiden is not worth killing… Now, calm down…" What?!

I shot my view towards Shinki, and I can see that she was already tired on forming all those barriers that got shattered. She looked back at me when she noticed I was looking at her, and she simply made a weak smile, and nodded. Looks like she can also hear what she just said too, or maybe she got the wrong meaning why I looked at her. Okay… I guess now I can see why they respect her this much… And I can't just turn a blind eye towards this.

I walked towards the now confined and bound Lily Black, ignoring various protests thrown towards me. I don't care about that. If she needed to calm down, then I'll calm her down myself. I eventually reached the barrier, and she looked at me with a resigned look. The ones that have their hopes given up, or in Black's case, a strong case of trying to kill her anger. I put my hand on the barrier, and she put her hand on mine from the inside of the barrier. I might not be able to feel it, but it feels really warm somehow. And really calming at that too. Not sure about Black's case, though.

"Ehehe…" She giggled all of the sudden. "What are you trying to do, Kotomi?"

"… Frankly, I don't know." I said honestly. And then the barrier disappeared, along with the ice chains. That was my cue to hug her, making her trash around all the sudden.

"H-Hey! What are you doing?!" She shouted. I might not be able to see her face, but she's probably as red as a tomato now.

"Well, hugs usually calm people down." I said while still hugging her. "Maybe you'll fell calm when I do this."

She stopped trashing abruptly, and after a few seconds of doing nothing, she hugged me back, but this time, tender enough not to turn my regenerated ribcage into mush again. That's when I noticed a shadow looming over me. Practically, considering the shadow had six wings, I was about to presume it was Shinki, but I quickly shot it down when I noticed that the wings are made of feathers. I released my hug from Black, which the latter complied without having me to tell her, and got a good look at the shadow owner. If the six feathery wings are any indication, then…

"Are you an angel?" I asked the person in front of me. Quite frankly, I didn't know who… she was, but she looked like an angel to me. Looks like my question to Shinki will be delayed after I satiate my curiosity for the woman in simple blue dress and long white sleeves in front of me.

"An Archangel to some, an angel of death to some, and a fallen angel to some, due to religious reasons, but yes, I'm an angel. My name is Sariel." The angel, now known as Sariel, bowed. "And I must say, you did a good job at calming her down, considering what she did earlier." She said while looking around. Why did I say she? That's because she looks like a woman, and I don't feel like calling her with "it". And that's when I realized that the ice was still all over the place, and I could still see the purple glass like shards of what's supposedly was when Shinki made the barrier, but the shards dissipated with time.

"I'm just doing what she might be doing." I answered like a professional, even if I have no experience on calming people down at all. "After all, she is trying to calm down herself. I'm just there to help her. Maybe Shinki can approve that. Hey, Shinki, you heard what she said when she stopped struggling, right?!"

I noticed that her eye twitched, and she nodded. "And how did you know that I hear what she muttered when she was calming herself down?"

"Then we have the same sensitivity for low sounds." I said with a grin. "Mind if I ask you regarding what happened several years ago? Don't worry, you don't have to answer now." Her eyes twitched again, but she nodded. Good, that'll satiate my question for later time.

"Sariel-sama…" Black said as she stands up, and hugged the angel tightly. "I did it… I can suppress my anger…"

"That's good to hear then, Black-san." The angel said with a smile. "And who might this human be?"

Black's face suddenly beamed up again as she vanished, and put both her hands down from my shoulder in a relaxed manner, and rested her head on top of mine. "This human-oid demonic virus is Kotomi Horikawa, a former soldier from the outside world that had a vision about his future!"

I knew it, it was a vision.

"But rest assured, I'll try my best to protect him from any real threats that endangering him, even if he was an immortal now! He's under my observation now, so I will look at him almost every time!" Black said in full enthusiasm mode, totally different from what she is just seconds ago. And I could see that the angel's smile turned wry when she said that.

"Well, this'll be messy for her part, then." Sariel said, earning a confused look from me and Black, if her head slightly moved upwards was an indication. "You know how the yama is about someone that had lived too long from their death, right?"

"Ah, you mean like when they send kishins or shinigamis to assassinate hermits and celestials?" Black said, her voice turning serious all of the sudden. "I know about that. And I'm not actually surprised if Eiki is planning to do something that will have anything that have something to do with this guy, but rest assured, it'll go fine. I won't be on her path when she is doing so. Fate never stays at one end after all when there's a sudden change of events and effort from this humanoid guy, and I'll be damned for my entire my life if he did die in that ordeal. But by judging that you know about this, then she already told you about her plan, right?"

Sariel nodded in advance. "Yes, but I'm sorry, I can't tell you about her plan."

"Eh, knowing that she had to deal with an immortal, she'll probably ask, or even downright command every big gun in Gensokyo to do her bidding." Well, I had a bad future waiting for me, then.

To my surprise, Sariel jerked while taking a step back. "How did…"

"I know? That's all too clear from the start. The yama can't directly deal with the problem of the world of living herself, but she can influence everyone to do her bidding. I think I'll find her, and give her a good reason to do so."

"Hey!" I shouted to her. "What about your promise?!"

"Like I said, I want to see how you deal with that problem. If things go too awry for you, or something unprecedented happened, that's when I interfere." She answered with a cold and serious tone. Damn, I really prefer mood swinging Black than dead serious Black. No pun intended there. "Hey, Shinki, are you making an antidote for this virus?!" Hey!

"Well, I'm still trying, Black-san." Whew, that's a relief. "So far, the antidote I made only managed to fail to do what it was intended to do. And frankly, I don't know how long for the antidote to be able to do its job."

"I just hope it won't be when I was about to face the yama and some of those big guns that Black just told me." I muttered low enough to make sure only Black can hear it.

"I certainly hope so too." Dammit, Black, just what do you want to do to me? "Oi, Reimu, Suika, when are you just going to stand there like idiots trying to understand a professor's teaching?!" That's a weird comparing, you know, Black?

The first one to snap was, surprisingly, the oni first. "Ey, Reimu, wake up, what should we do now?" Okay, so the oni is Suika, and the shrine maiden is Reimu. Duly noted.

And finally, the shrine maiden snapped. "Well, now we have to ask him. Oi, do you want to come with us?!" Luckily my hearing hears what she said before hand. I looked at my mistress, who has been watching the whole ordeal silently, and she just shrugged, and a face that says 'It's up to you to decide, I'll just follow you.' kind of face, which is rather weird, considering who the master here is.

"I'll ask my mistress first." I said, and she just looked at me, a stoic face adorned her face. "Wanna come with me?"

The answer is just a shrug, but she walked closer to me. "Don't see why not. Maybe I can visit Alice too like this."

"Ooh, ooh, say my hello to her for me!" The goddess piped in.

"Yes, mother." My mistress simply said. "So, when are we going to go?"

"So, when are we going to go?" I repeated the question to the shrine maiden. She just signaled with a face that says "now".

My mistress flapped her wings and went to the duo, while I have to change my hand and my feet into propeller engines first. It feels very weird to feel that it was my body that was doing it, and yet, at the same time, my squishy flesh turned into hard metal when I ask it to become just that. It feels really weird. But it seems the shrine maiden has seen even weirder things, considering her lack of interest to me changing my body parts, or she knows what shape shifter means. I turned on the propellers, and I was lifted to the air. I lay down in the air and I was propelled forward (Duh, obviously), and when I stand up, I got lifted, so I have to make one of those jets like at the harrier ones in order to push me back down when I needed to stay on the same height as the other. When the oni and shrine maiden departed, my mistress and I followed suit, towards her shrine, maybe.

"Well, there they go, towards their journey." Shinki muttered while looking at the angel and the fairy of death. "Are you two going to stay here?"

"No, I'm going to keep most of my time watching him, even if he was only doing something suuuper boring." Black answered, and then vanished from their view.

Sariel looked at the spot where the fairy of death was before with a sad smile, and flew towards the door, leaving Shinki, Yuki, and Yumeko in the room. Shinki wondered why the angel looked like that, and decided to shrug it off, before she remembered something. "Oh dear, I forgot about that."

"What did you forget mistress?" Yumeko asked. "It's not often of you to forget something. Is this something important?"

"Well, nothing important really, I just forgot to give him back his weapons. Could you take his weapons for me?"

"Of course, mistress."

Yumeko then flew towards the door, followed by Yuki, since she didn't have other things to do in the room. After a couple of minutes later, Yumeko came back with Kotomi's weapon, his assault rifle and his sword.

"Here it is." Yumeko simply said as she gave the goddess of Makai the weapons.

The goddess the looked at the weapons, and eyed the assault rifle. She then pointed one of her hand upwards, and a white spirit appeared on it, before she put it inside the gun. Yumeko raised an eyebrow while this was happening.

"What is that, mistress?" Yumeko asked.

"Oh, I decided that it would be unfair for the citizens of Gensokyo if I didn't give him some magical power, and since his demon part, the part that contains magic for his body was still dormant, I decided to give him a familiar. This familiar, unlike most familiar out there, have its own magic reserve and can replenish it wherever the soldier is, even if he was at the outside world, where magic is nonexistent." Shinki answered in detail. "And like most objects that I made, I made this one to be sentient, and she will know who her master is, and she will be able to talk to him through telepathy. She can also possess other things if she wanted to, but if she does so, then she better changed into something useful, since she can only possess other things once, and then she will be trapped inside the object she possessed for the rest of her life.

When she possessed something that can't talk, she will only talk to her master through telepathy, like this gun. If she were to possess something that can talk, either by a mouth, a radio, or something that can produce coherent sound, then she can talk from what the object she possessed. And as another set of bonus for her, she can repair any damage if the object she possessed if she were not taking any more damage that is enough to damage the object she possessed, she can do what the object she possessed can't, she can learn pretty fast, and the last is that she can use the magic she had to make a hand construct, so that she can give her master a helping hand."

"I must say, mistress, it seems like you're giving too much of an advantage for this… human." Yumeko said her opinion. "I mean, isn't that a little too much of an advantage for him?"

"Nonsense, I'm only doing what I think will help him facing his future. After all, this is what the author wanted me to do anyway." Shinki said, defending herself. "He's also the one that gave me this idea. I'm just following what he said."

BONK!

"Don't break the fourth wall like that. It's hard to fix it, you know." Yukari sternly said, before she went back into her gap, while also dodging swords that was thrown towards her.

Shinki simply stick out her tongue towards where Yukari was before, and looked at the gun, and then towards Yumeko, and said, "Give the weapon back towards its owner for me, Yumeko."

"Okay, mistress." Yumeko said, but she only takes the gun with her. "But I'm taking that sword, since you left me out from that secret."

Shinki simply let out a smile, and dismissed it with her hand, also telling her to get going. Yumeko nodded, and flew after the group that was now far in front of her. Shinki mused about what Black told her about the antidote, before she flicked her finger, the expansive room changing into a high tech laboratory.

"Now, time to figure out how to make the antidote."

The sun was about to settle down when our group finally get out from Makai. I must say, for something that had the meaning "Demon World", it's… really breathtaking too, unlike everything that I imagined about the demon world I usually imagined.

We are taking a rest at the entrance of the cave now, where the girl that injected me with that virus was sprawling at the grass, badly beaten by someone. Reimu was stretching both her hands into the air, Suika was taking another drink from her gourd, my mistress was looking into the distant, and I was simply changing to what extend that I can change my body into. So far, I can create rockets the size of my body, make it separated from my body, and threw it into the distance before a loud explosion was heard. To be exact, the former two were exhausted, while my mistress and I were simply waiting for them.

"Mistress, what are you looking at?" I asked while flying closer towards her. She simply looked at me back, and pointed her hand towards the sunset in the horizon. "Ah, I see. Being inside there didn't really let you see this kind of scenery, eh?"

The response was a nod, but that's all I need. "Yeah, I also liked to gaze at the sun like this too. The charm of it never ceases to make me mesmerized." I said.

I then noticed some ruffling sound of clothes from behind, and I shifted my view to the back, to see that Yumeko, the maid from earlier, was bringing my gun with her. Oh god, how can I forget to bring it?

"Ah, there you are. My mistress told me to give this to you." Yumeko said while handing me the gun. Where's the sword anyway? Ah hell, at least my favorite gun is safe. My sword was only my secondary melee anyway.

I was about to grab it when I noticed something was off from the gun. The gun seemed to be… alive, for some reason. I can't tell how I know it, but the feeling is there. And I don't like people that took my gun do something to it.

"What did you do to it?" I asked while setting a glare to the maid. She was quite shocked about the question, but she recomposed herself.

"What are you talking about? It's fine, see?" Yumeko answered without any sense of fear. But the way she reacted earlier give it away anyway.

"I said, What. Did. You. Do. To. It?" I emphasized every word. "I know when there's something different with my gun, and I can feel this one too."

She clicked her tongue, and then sighed. "I must say, you have quite the senses there."

"Yeah, now stop the sidetracking and tell me the answer. What. Did. You. Do. To. I-"

-Master!-

What the?! This is… telepathy? But… from where? Just in case…

"Mistress, did you hear something earlier?" Maybe, just maybe…

"Well, I only hear you two bickering. Other than that, no." Okay, that was definitely a telepathy if she didn't hear it.

"Yumeko…" I hissed at her. "Did you hear something earlier?"

"Well, aside from you, I certainly don't hear anything." She answered calmly. Well, there goes the intimidation.

-Master, I'm right in front of you!-

In front of me? Let's see… The only thing in front of me was Yumeko, my gun, the cave, and the mountain. Wait a minute, my gun…

"Are you… talking through the gun?" I asked to my gun. I could feel my mistress turned around to face me and Yumeko simply raised an eyebrow at my question.

-Mmhm! I'm the gun! Mother told me to be your master and to assist you in battle, so I'll be your familiar!-

Well, the voice suggested that she is a girl, but mother? Who's she calling…

"Shinki…" I said while face palming after it struck me. The damn goddess just has to do something to rig my gun. "So, do you have a name? I certainly don't feel like calling you a gun." I asked the gun.

-Nope, don't have! You can took the liberty of naming me right now!-

Hmm… a name that would suit it's girly telepathic voice…Sayaka? Yeah, I'll just call "her" that.

"How about Sayaka? Does that sound good to you?"

-Sounds good to me!-

"*Sigh* Okay, Yumeko, I'll let this one slide." I said while taking Sayaka. "And tell my thanks to Shinki."

Yumeko nodded, and she flies back into the cave. I turned my attention to my mistress, when I realized a speck of black on one of the trees. Now trees shouldn't have that much darkness in some spot, so I changed my eye into a telescope in order to find out who it was.

It was Black watching me from the distance.

"Mistress, I'm going somewhere first." I said.

Without waiting for any answer, I flied off to where I see Black. Sure enough, the… fairy is there, watching at me with an amused face as she waved her feet back and forth leisurely.

"Guess you have a sharp eye, Kotomi." She said as I get floated in front of her, changing my hand-propeller into my normal hand, and then crossed it in front of my chest.

"I need to ask you something, Black." I stated. There's something that must be wrong if she beat a yama.

"Yes? What is it?"

"Are you sure you just beat a… yama?"

She seemed shocked when I said that, and hummed while placing her hand on her chin. "Why yes, even though she's a little shocked by the fact I'm rampaging in her ministry. That's probably because she lacked information the information about me, though. I once looked at one of her danmaku battle with a reporter and she can use her opponent's self to be pitted against her enemy. Needless to say, her enemy had a hard time trying to beat her, but she's only photographing the yama, weirdly." She answered with a bit of skepticism. "I'll be damned if I can beat a yama in a fist fight twice actually, seeing that they handle the dead souls, while I have the ability to kill gods. That practically makes me lower than a yama."

"If you know your enemy and yourself, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss." I muttered as I remembered one of the quotations of a Chinese general. "If you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or may lose. If you neither know yourself or the enemy, you will always endanger yourself."

Black nodded in agreement. "I'm actually surprised you remember that quotation, but yes, Eiki needs all the information she needed if she want to go against me again, and I'm pretty damn sure she'll win next time I battle her. She had the advantage of some of my unknown traits that I don't know myself."

"How does she know that?"

"I asked Sariel-sama to do that, and they probably wouldn't tell me about it, since even Sariel-sama didn't want to tell me." Black answered with a shrug. "I guess it wouldn't be fair if I forced her to tell me, so I just go on with the information I know. Sariel-sama also said that some of my information are better to be told later, since it's not the time for me to know it yet."

"But why?" I asked her. "If you know more about yourself, you can basically win every battle."

"Because I don't like using brute force so people will do my bidding." Black answered, and sagely nodded. "But yes, you are right. By the way, why are you not surprised when I said that I have the ability to kill gods?"

"Because I already heard you say that in Makai." I answered with a shrug. "Honestly, though, how do you kill a god that's basically run on faith and you can kill them no matter how strong they are?"

"Huh, you have some very good hearing to be able to hear my muttering back there." She said as she chuckled. "Well, not only I have the ability to kill immortals and gods, I also have the ability to block off any powers used against me, and I can make a pitch dark world where no vision should be able to penetrate it. You may call it overkill, but I balanced it with the fact that I have a somewhat weird body that amplified my pain senses and the fact that I don't like using force to settle things, unless I was forced to."

"Or someone pissed you off." I added. "And what do you mean by "amplified pain senses?""

"Beats me, it just happens like that, and that's why I used my teleportation ability to its fullest and provide a basic shield that should be able to cushion every hit that my body receive." She said as she scratched her temple.

"And why don't you like being called… you know." I don't want her to rage at me.

"Well, because I don't want to be addressed with the weakest life form in this land, and that they didn't address me correctly." Okay, that's reasonable, if she can kill gods and immortals. "Sariel-sama said I'm a hybrid of fairy and shinigami, so she said that I'm the one and only species, a shinigami fairy."

"…That still had the word fairy in it, you know." I pointed it out.

"At least it had the word shinigami in it!" She shouted, but she fake coughed after that. "Anyway, I think our little chatter should end here. I need to see if I can pry more of my secrets from Sariel-sama thanks to you. Bye~"

She disappeared to god knows where the angel was, and I could hear the leaves shaking behind me. That's probably the duo and my mistress coming after me.

-Master, who's… who's that girl? She's scary…-

…Wow, Black, wow. You scared the living hell out of a sentient-made gun just by your presence.

"She's Lily Black, a shinigami fairy, as you have heard. I presume that I don't have to tell what her powers are capable of, right?"

-…Yes.-

"Ah, there you are." The sound of the shrine maiden reached my ear. I turned as she looked at me with an annoyed face. My mistress is also there, but she only used her stoic face. "Why did you wander here on your own? Feral youkais are starting to get active, you know."

"I survived when my ribcage and its content turned into mush, so what could a few feral youkais do to me?" I answered with another question. "Besides, I'm immortal, you're worrying me too much."

"But still…" Her words trailed out.

"Anyway, let's go to your shrine." I said, snapping the shrine maiden from whatever she's thinking of.

"Right." She nodded, and flew towards the sun, so this means that we're at the east side of Gensokyo. I followed her as the oni passed me alongside my mistress. Well, this certainly is one heck of a day.

I wonder what will happen next.

* * *

Author's note : I hope that should be enough for this part, it's down to the next chapter to clear up the rest. And yes, I made Shinki broke the fourth wall, since she was a goddess, and because I noticed how absurd I made Kotomi's familiar was.

Next Chapter : A rematch


	8. A rematch

Eiki walked inside the Ministry of Right and Wrong again, only this time, she wasn't going to go the Yama's Archive. She was currently making her way towards one of the many wards inside the ministry, going towards her friend, Judge. The part where she is walking now was filled with injured shinigamis and kishins, and nurses alongside doctors are running here and there every second. They never got this many patients to be handled before, not even the attack before was giving this much patient to them. And this attack also had one of the shinigami to be given special treatment due to the seriousness the shinigami takes. And that didn't count the ones that was punched and kicked only once, but was having quite really bad internal damages, even though it was healing by now.

Eiki stopped at a door that had the name Judge on the front of it, and knocked it. "Mister Judge, it's me, Shikieiki."

"Ah, Miss Eiki, come in." Judge replied from behind the door, and Eiki walked in the room. Judge was not really hurt, but because he also took the brunt hit of Lily Black's fist, he was hospitalized too. Eiki took a nearby seat, and put it beside Judge's bed, before sitting on it. "What brings you here, may I ask?"

"Is it wrong for me to visit?" Eiki asked, but continued before letting Judge answer that. "Anyway, how are you feeling now, Mister Judge?"

"Certainly not any better than before," Judge said with a small smile. "But at least I can help the doctors and nurses with the equipment I prepared for them."

Eiki nodded. "I could see that you gave them some helping hand using the outside world's equipment."

"Even though they're not as advanced as the lunarians, they still helped quite a lot." Judge said, before repositioning himself into a sitting position. "Anyway, what did you talked about with the angel?"

"Well, we talked about the shinigami fairy." Eiki answered, and then closed her eyes. "Black gave her the liberty to tell some of her unknown secrets even to herself, and what Sariel first told me was beyond imagination. If it's not because of the agreement, I would be more than happy to tell you about it."

Judge looked at the judge of paradise with consent, before he smiled. "She's not lying is she? About that she can kill immortals?"

"I can't even tell you that, sorry." Eiki shook her head reluctantly. But Judge already knew what that means.

"So, you basically have more information about her than she herself knows, huh?" Judge asked, still having the same smile he made earlier. He got a nod as an answer. "Well, you lacked the information earlier, so it's a clear mark that you'll lose that… incident."

"I know as much." Eiki said with a solemn nod. "And I intend to rematch her after I consult this with the angel again. I can't possibly let her think she can beat me again. I'm the judge the dead, she gave death to whoever she wishes to. That basically makes her lower than me, and I intend to make it so."

"She may not look like it, but she's a lot smarter than she looks, Miss Eiki." Judge warned her. "She is also cunning enough to make people do her bidding, and she observes people when they least expect them, and she hide her presence well enough to even make Yakumo couldn't feel her presence, if the youkai sage isn't careful. She respects people that can beat her, or at least until a standstill, since that was enough for her to acknowledge their power. She's an observant even in battle, due to her nature of "Do things not by force". She may look aloof, but that's because she's a mood swinger, thought not to an extent like the youkai sage, but she's a lot more serious when things needed it, like the youkai sage herself. She knows information is a weapon, and as such regards it one of the most valuable thing in battle."

"Thanks for the warning, even if the angel already told me so. I also intended to pit her against her own self." Eiki said with a smile as she stands up from her position. She then walked to the door, and as she opened, she stopped there first.

"Is there something wrong, Miss Eiki?" Judge asked with a raised eyebrow.

"This is up to you to judge it yourself, Mister Judge, since I will leave after I tell this, but…" Eiki stopped there, and exhaled. "If the power she had now is only the tip of the iceberg, what do you think will her own self do if the illusion I gained from her is the one with her full power on?"

Judge's eye went wide after what Shikieiki just said as the latter closed the door. "…The tip of the iceberg?" Judge repeated the word in shock, since he didn't expect that the shinigami fairy didn't even use half of her power. He may be one of the most informed individual in the whole universe, but he also had some things that he did not know. "Lily Black, just what kind of power do you actually have…?"

* * *

Eiki let out a sigh as she closed the door behind her. She had expected the seal to react, but to her relief, it doesn't. Maybe because the information was vague at best, not exactly indicating her true power. She also had known by what Sariel told her, but the lack of information from the angel itself about Lily Black's power when fully activated was nowhere near convincing. Sariel also told her about what's causing the amplified sense of pain that Lily Black experienced, but she's still not sure how that even worked.

"I need more information about her…" Eiki muttered as she flew after reaching the front yard. She had been walking while thinking about the possibilities the entire walk. She intended to get more information first, and then asked the shinigami fairy for a rematch.

* * *

"So…" I began as I watched the scene in front of me happening. "Who and what is she doing to the shrine maiden, uh… who are you again? Oh, and I'm Kotomi Horikawa, by the way."

"Suika~. I'm Suika Ibuki, nice to know'cha, Kotomi." She answered my question, even though I already know her name. It's just that I haven't introduced myself yet, so I pretended that I don't know her name yet. "And that youkai in front of ya is Yuuukari Yakumo, a gap you~kai."

"And what is she doing to the shrine maiden? What's her name, by the way?"

"That's Reimu Hakurei, the shri~ne maiden of paradise~." She answered with her drunken tone again. "She's being played by the gap youkai as usuaaa…"

Thud.

Well, there goes the oni's consciousness.

"Mistress, care to elaborate what's going on with those two?" I asked while pointing towards the scene. Well, the only thing I understand was that the shrine maiden was being hugged tightly by that youkai, Yukari as Suika called her, and the shrine maiden is not amused by what she's doing.

"Beats me." My mistress said with a shrug. Well, I guess I can see why, though.

"Yukari, get off me!" The shrine maiden said while pushing the gap youkai, though it's not really working, but it still managed to give Reimu some space to talk now. "And why are you here anyway?! I thought you'll prepare to go hibernating now!"

"I decided to stay awake for the first few weeks~" The gap youkai said teasingly. "So that I can play with you a bit longer~"

"The only thing you'll do is pestering me!" The shrine maiden retorted. "And besides, we have lookers, you know!"

"Oh, really?" She asked playfully, and looked around, until our eyes met. She perked up immediately, and used the… gap, which she used like in my dream, and hopped into it. The next thing that happened was that there was a low tearing sound, and the youkai popped in front me, upside down. How she does so without making her haid, clothes, and hat going down was a mystery. "My my, looks like the star of Aya's newspaper is here. You looked exactly like the two described."

"Newspaper?" I asked while raising an eyebrow. "I'm on newspaper?"

"Of course you are~. Here, take a look at it yourself." Yukari said while opening another gap, in which a newspaper dropped from it. I took it, and skimmed through the content. "See? You're a star on all around Gensokyo now, outsider."

"And I told those two to keep it a secret…" I said while face palming. "This'll attract unnecessary attention, that's for sure."

"You don't like being a star, do you?"

"I just don't like the attention when I get out there and start exploring this place." I honestly answered. I mean, when your main element is stealth, you certainly don't want to be in the center of the attention. "And I don't like being the center of attention."

"Spotlight avoider, eh? Most humans usually liked being in the center of the spotlight, though."

"Not me, and I'm not human anymore." I shamelessly said, earning a raised eyebrow from the youkai. Even if she was upside down, I could still see that she raised her eyebrow.

"Oh my, really? How can I don't feel any weird feelings from you? Youkai generally can be detected just by their presence." She asked.

"Well, I'm more like a test result rather than a youkai due to a certain goddess." I said while rolling my eyes. "And could you please stand properly? It looks weird that I'm talking to an upside down woman."

"That's the gap youkai for you. She's like the epitome of weird thinking, even youkai have problem trying to figure what she's thinking. And youkai have a weird way of thinking." Mai piped in.

-Master, this woman looks powerful…-

"I know, Sayaka, I know." I said, earning a confused, yet seemingly interested look from the gap youkai in front of me.

"My, are you giving me a nickname, suddenly?" She asked, and looked at my mistress shortly. "And I really did not expect you to be here, Mai. She's not up to something again, isn't she?"

"Rest assured that my mistress and I are here because of that shrine maiden." I answered on her behalf, earning another interested look from the gap youkai. Huh, I'm a spotlight avoider, as she calls it, and yet, I'm still in the spotlight. "And no, I'm not giving you a nickname."

She quickly pouted after I said those words. "Hmph, and I thought that you will fall for my beauty." She said while looking away.

-Master, what is she implying right now?-

"Dunno, probably just her trying to tease me." I answered, in which I got a question popped in my head suddenly. "Wait, can I talk to you through telepathy too?"

-Probably, I don't know.-

"Who are you talking to?" My mistress probably couldn't help but to ask now.

"I'm talking to my gun, which I named Sayaka, after Shinki somehow made the gun sentient, and she made her only able to talk to me through telepathy." I answered as politely as possible. "I don't know if she can talk to anyone else using the same method, though."

"Interesting…" The gap youkai said suddenly while eyeing the gun. "So, you say this gun is made sentient?"

"Yes, Shinki made my gun sentient, that's for sure." I said after having trouble on how to call her.

"Hmm… Oh, yeah!" She said suddenly, probably remembering something. She was about to open her mouth when…

"Hey, any of you are going to sleep inside or not?" Reimu suddenly shouted from inside her shrine. It seems she moved inside after Yukari dropped her attention from her.

"Oh my, you're offering me to sleep with you?" The gap youkai suddenly perked up. "I'm more than willing to sleep wi-"

"I'm not asking you, Yukari!" The voice of Reimu shouted before even letting Yukari finish her sentence. "I'm offering the two that came with me!"

Yukari pouted at the answer. "Boo~."

"So, what do you say, mistress? Are you going to sleep inside?"

"Well, I could say that I'm tired now." She said before she yawned shortly. "Yeah, I think I'll sleep for now. Are you following?"

"Nah, I'm just going to watch the perimeter." I answered with a dismissive wave. "I'm used to do that after all, so I'm not the one that will just succumb easily to fatigue."

"Suit yourself." Mistress said with a shrug, and entered the shrine. I could hear them talking about me, but I let that slid as I sat down on the porch of the shrine, and looked at the night.

…*Sigh* Seriously, this is one heck of a day. First, I got a dream where I get decapitated, which turned to be what my future should look like. Then I went into this… fantasy world accidentally, and was now a star on the very first day. I acquainted a fairy of death (Yeah, I'll just give her that title, since it kinda suits her) that can kill gods and can block powers used against her, and she can even make pitch black pocket dimension on her whim, even as much as being observed by her, and the event took place where I was supposed to be dead. And then, I become a test subject by a demon goddess that turns me into a humanoid demonic virus that can shape shift my body like a certain virus while also changing my the material, or in this case, my flesh and bones, into something like metal and wood, and can consume, probably, anything, before I got a master that doesn't look like how a master and its servant would interact like before I say it out loud. And said goddess rigged my gun so that it becomes sentient. All in all, I have a very, very, weird day. Whatever the hell is the Lord doing towards me?

"Hello~, are you trying to ignore me?" And I snapped back from my thought because of the voice of the youkai.

-Your face seemed that you have just gone through something really bad, master.-

I laughed at the remark that Sayaka made. "Really, Sayaka, if you know what I've faced from the very first time I get here, you won't be surprised while I was thinking such a thing."

-Oh, sorry…-

"No need to be apologizing now, you didn't know about that either." I said instantly. "So, I take that you're now thinking me as some sort of crazy person now, Yukari?"

"Well, it would be so, but then again, that's how most people that I gapped here will feel." She said cheerfully, and I wouldn't even bother seeing if she had a smile on her face, thought. But that gapped part…

"What do you mean by gapped? Some sort of abducting?" I said while looking at the youkai.

"You could it like that, although you came here for a very different reason." She said with a shrug, and a made up face that seemed to mimic thinking. Bah, I bet even a seven year old child can identify that as a fake. "You came here just when my shikigami is fixing the holes in the barrier, how unfortunate of you~"

"A barrier? You can't be serious." I said, half shouting. "Who made the freaking barrier? Even we haven't been able to do so." She was about to say something before I continued, "No wait, don't tell me that. Must be magic. And shikigami? Is this shikigami has nine tails and wearing what looked like some sort of Chinese looking clothing?"

She chuckled for no apparent reason. "Amusing, not many people actually do that when I was about to answer. And yes, that's my shikigami."

"Ah, can you tell her to come here? Need something in order to relieve my stress." I said while crackling my knuckles.

And Yukari raised an eyebrow towards my blunt statement. "Why? Oh, could you be… No, that can't be. Or maybe… yes, there is that possibility." I don't even know what the hell is inside her mind right now. She eyed me again, this time with more interest. "Could you have fallen for her?"

There was a pregnant silence after she said that, and I only looked at her straight into her eyes with a flat gaze and a totally not amused face. "No, she is the exact reason why I was in this whole crap of mess, Yukari." I flatly stated. "If feral youkais were attracted to the scent of blood, that's because of my back bleeding me to death. I died earlier, but fate interjected that, and thus, here I am now."

"Oo~h, I see." I don't like that glittering eyes. It promises trouble, I can tell that just by looking at her. And by training in the military also helps that. "No wonder Shikieiki was talking about someone that died, but somehow gets revived afterwards. So you are the person~"

"Uuugh…" I groaned. "Now I see why Black is talking about yamas earlier. Just what kind of freaking mess did I get into?"

Now normally, I have been in varying degrees problem when facing life or death problem, and this is no different than that. However, that comes in a form of something I and my team can still dispose of. This is me on my own and, maybe, just maybe, Lily Black, against the judge of the death that may send their shinigamis, or those kishins as Black called the other one, to kill me. I don't know if the latter two can kill immortals, but I don't like the prospect of having my head to be butchered and still alive. And the prospect of me saying that makes the youkai squint her eyes at me.

"Black, you just said?" She said, suddenly in serious mode. "Tell me, does this Black have a full name of Lily Black?"

The way she sounded that… It's not a question that I can just wave off. She also said that in a tone that's demanding an answer… no, commanding for me to answer sounds better than the last one. This Yukari has the same personality with Black, and I don't like that prospect.

-Master, she's scary like that…-

"Well, you had the reason to be scared, unlike earlier." I said, trying to calm her down. Whether or not she calmed down, at least I tried. "And yes, she is Lily Black. Now, could you please bring your shikigami here?"

"Oh yes, I forgot about that." She turned cheerful again, and opened a gap on the yard of the shrine. From it, drop the nine tailed shikigami, landing face first to the ground.

"Ow! Master, what was that-" Her words were further silenced as I punched her at the head, sending her to kiss the ground again.

"Ahaha~, my, that was quite a spectacle!" Yukari giggled at the prospect that I just make her shikigami. "Not many people can do that to her~."

-What is that for?-

"If you faced what I have faced, then you'll know why I did that." I answered her question. "And besides, she's not going to be knocked out just by a punch like that."

"Oww… Master, what was…" Her words froze as she looked at me straight at my face, showing the clear surprised look on her face. "You…"

"Yo." I said nonchalantly while lifting a hand. "No need to say anything. I'm satisfied by just doing that to you."

She eyed me in confusion for some seconds, so I took the liberty to walk back towards the porch of the shrine, and sit on there. The woman was still looking at me like I am some sort of ghost, and looked towards the still giggling Yukari beside me. "Yukari-sama, what's the meaning of this?"

"Ohoho, thanks to what you did towards this human, we may or may not have a quite large incident that would take place in about a matter of days. Certainly, that needs a punishment, yes?" Yukari said while covering her lower face with her fan. "That certainly counts as a punishment. Or would you take the punishment from me instead?"

The kitsune seemed surprised by this, and I was too in fact. A large incident, in a few days left? Certainly, this hooks me in it, and I'm pretty damn sure about it. As a soldier that relies heavily on stealth, I sort of have sixth sense from that, and those words she just said earlier is making my sixth sense alarming me.

"I… I see…" The kitsune said weakly. "I'll take that as my punishment, Yukari-sama."

"Good~" The gap youkai said as she opened another gap, this time vertically. "Now, please continue on whatever you may be doing."

The kitsune bowed, and stepped into the gap, and it disappeared like it wasn't there in the first place. The youkai beside decided to stand up, and opened another gap below her. "I'll take my leave now~. Maybe we can have some more talk about Lily Black sometime later."

The last sentence took me by surprise, and before I can ask why, the youkai was already gone, dropping through her gap, and disappearing too at that. I sighed as I pinched the bridge of my nose again. "Damnit, things will go south from today on, I could already smell that."

-Umm… Master?-

"Yes, what is it?"

-…No, nothing. Just forget about it.-

"…Okay."

I sighed again as I leaned towards the nearest support of the shrine. The night sky in this place was certainly an eye candy, what with the stars not being clouded by the light pollution, making the night sky look like it was glittered with light. It looks… really… beau…ti…ful…

* * *

Shikieiki could see her destination is within her view now; an abandoned shrine inside the realm of Makai, where Sariel resides. One would wonder why there is a shrine in a demon world. Is it for praying towards Shinki? Is it a place created by the locals? Or is it just a place that Shinki built on a whim. Regardless of the origin, it was there, and the angel is residing inside the shrine.

Shikieiki floated down towards the shrine, and she could feel that something is amiss already. She opened the door of the shrine, while also raising a cloud of dust just by doing that. She coughed while trying to dissipate the cloud of dust. Even though she is immortal, having dust entering your noses and lungs are certainly not something good for everyone that needs clean air to breathe. As the cloud dissipated, she felt a presence behind her, and after getting a second only look at an incredulous faced Sariel, she swung her rod of remorse towards her back, and felt something blocking it.

"Hey hey hey, no need to get rough on the welcome, Eiki." A girly voice said.

"Black…" Eiki said in weary tone as she recognized the voice.

There, in front of the judge of the dead, was Lily Black, still clad in her prominent black and red clothing, though black dominated ninety eight percent of the color.

"Yo." Black said while raising her free hand. "What'cha doing here?"

"I should be the one asking you that." Shikieiki shot back with another question.

"Well, I'm asking for more intel, of course." Black said while swatting away the rod. "Nothing more than that."

"More you're trying to pry it from me." Sariel said deadpanned.

"Oh come on, Sariel-sama. If I were much more hostile on that intent, I could overpower you, even though it will take some time. But you know how I work." Black responded with a dismissive wave. "Anyway, have a seat now, Eiki." She gestured the yama in.

"Yes, please come in, Miss Shikieiki." Sariel backed the fairy of death.

Shikieiki take the gesture, and sat down on one of the pillows in the room. The room was filled with a cupboard, a round table, four pillows, a picture, and that's pretty much it. The room was also pretty dusty too.

"So, what brings you here, Miss Shikieiki?" Sariel began. "Do you need something?"

"Knowing her, I'll bet she wants to talk about something." Lily Black said while leaning towards one of the door slide. "More information, I bet."

Shikieiki nodded. "Yeah, I was still wondering about her true power, Sariel."

"But haven't we discussed about this before? Why are you asking that suddenly, after our conversation?" Sariel asked with a raised eyebrow, and raised it even higher when Black suddenly laughed out loud, catching the angel's and yama's attention. "What's the matter, Black-san? Why do you laugh all of the sudden?"

"Oh, pardon the rudeness Sariel-sama, but isn't that obvious already to you, if she's asking you again?" Black answered with a question. When Sariel didn't change her facial expression, Black sighed. "Come on, it should've been obvious."

"What are you talking about, Lily Black?" Shikieiki asked this time.

"The reason you're asking that is because you're here for more information, that's one." Black said while raising a hand and a finger. "Another reason is because you'll probably fight me again using my own self, and have some doubts about it." She raised another finger. "And thus, you need to know more about me first, so that she'll know the risk of pitting me against me."

"Just as Judge and Sariel said, you're a lot smarter than you look." Eiki admitted while closing both eyes.

Lily Black laughed again, only this time, not as loud as earlier. "Oh, Eiki, the only reason why I'm here and knows the very reason why you're asking about more information is because I just had a conversation about beating a yama and that I'll be damned if I win the second time, especially now you had more information about myself." Black said while looking towards the ceiling. "Even though I would also know about that, but it'll take longer for me to know why."

"You actually know about that, and you just realized it now?" Sariel asked in a mild surprise.

"Well, let's just say that conversation also reminded me where I supposedly belonged to." Black answered.

"You're the bringer of death, and I'm the judge of the dead, and so…" Eiki said, knowing what the shinigami fairy meant. "You're below me in terms of rank."

"Yeah, I know as much." The fairy of death let out a bitter laugh afterwards. "Anyway, so, up for a rematch? You get the first move this time. You didn't even put much of retaliation rather than that attack from behind, and I only threw you twice. Not what I can call a win, but this one should either end in a stalemate or a win from you. I'm expecting the former, though."

"You said that with full confidence. Do you think that information alone will help you win?" Shikieiki asked.

"If what I'm fighting is my current self rather than my real self, then yeah, I'm thinking at least it would end up in a stalemate. And information is only half of the battle, the rest is with effort."

"Okay then, let's get outside. Don't want to clean up the mess afterwards." Sariel piped in.

"You never even as much dusted the place in the first place, Sariel-sama." Lily Black said with a snicker.

Sariel simply smiled at the facts that are pointed towards her, and stood up, the judge of the dead and the fairy of death following behind her. They flew for several minutes until they could see a clearing, large enough for a large scale battle to happen. Shikieiki stayed in place with Sariel while Lily Black flew further forward, distancing herself from them. She stopped at about twenty meter in front of them, and turned to face them. And they also had an uninvited guest.

"Hello~" Shinki materialized beside Shikieiki, but the latter didn't even flinch from her presence. The fact also kind of startled her, since while she acted on Black's teleportation ability, she didn't flinch even when a goddess materialized beside her. "What's going on here, Miss judge of the dead?"

"A rematch." Shikieiki answered while taking out a Spell Card and a hand held mirror, and pointed those two towards the fairy of death. The latter whistled, but didn't really care about it. "I'm also going to see how much had you sinned, Lily Black."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Lily Black waved her hand in a casual manner.

"Hmm… You have quite a lot of white, surprising how you are acted, but you also had a share of black, which comes from your superiority complex and how you vent your angers." Shikieiki said with her eyes closed and a solemn look on her face. "I have to lecture about those two after this is over, it seems."

"Yeah, try finding me first before that. And when you say superiority complex, is it because I looked at people the same way I looked at them weakly before I test their power? It's more like a proof that they're capable of being noted for me." Black said.

"That is still a superiority complex, even though it is not as much as the vampire." Eiki said while opening her eyes. "Now, it is time for the rematch."

"This'll be interesting." Shinki mused while forming a chair in the air, and sat on it.

"More like there will be casualties, especially flora ones." Black said.

Sariel remained quiet, her worried look betraying her calm body.

"Judgment "Cleansed Crystal Judgment -Lily Black-!" Shikieiki declared her Spell Card.

A person then came out from the mirror, looking almost exactly like Lily Black. The reason there's the word almost was because the illusion from the crystal and Spell Card had a lot of blood on her body, to an extent that would seem like she just swam at a lake full of blood, or decimated a lot of people and let the blood shower her. She also sported a Cheshire cat grin that would also work well with a broken slasher smile, and her red eyes now had black slit in the middle of the eye.

"Well, damn, that's my true self? Looks nothing like me, to be honest." Black commented with a wry smile.

The trio was also a bit unnerved by this. Even if it was just an illusion, the illusion felt… real, like it was actually there in the first place. And that it also radiated something that everyone can feel.

The aura of death.

Shinki immediately, out of reflex, opened her six purplish demonic wings, and also conjured her staff. Sariel also readied herself as she tightened the grip on her staff, in case it went out of control. The one that is the most controlled in the trio was of course, the judge of the death, Shikieiki. She had full confidence that she had full control of her, though she showed a bit of fear too, despite the illusion doing nothing but looking at her other self.

Just as soon as Eiki was about to told her to begin, the "Real" Lily Black clasped her hands in front of her, shocking her, since she usually told the illusion to begin the attack after she left their battle arena or told it to do so. "Real" Lily Black did neither, as she opened her hand, moving it towards her far left and right side, creating two weapons in the process.

One of the weapon was, like Lily Black, a pitch black scythe, although a "bit" modified, since the middle part of the scythe has sharp blades protruding from it in a parallel line with the staff, with several more surrounding the middle part, and the scythe blade parts was… well, it doesn't look like a scythe anymore. Imagine bundling as much scythe as you can in order to make the scythes appear from almost every angle. Done? That's how it looked like, though it's much thinner than being bundled. And the top part of the scythe blades is sharp too. The top part of the scythe staff also had a sword on it, in order for added range to hit her victim. The bottom part of the handle also held a small dagger, likely for going into close quarters mode, though one would question how one would dare to fight her when they see a weapon like that. It also didn't help when said weapon is dripping with blood. And she single handed it, like it weighed nothing on her.

The other one doesn't look much more "subtle" than the staff scythe, since it was more like a mace ball, the one that had spiked ball on one end of the chains holding it, and the handle at the other hand. That's called a mace ball, right? Well, something like that as the base of the weapon. The steel spiked ball was still there, but the spike was now more like a mass of knifes, blades, short katana, and other kind of sharp weapon, all crammed in order to give people the looks of amass of sharp weapon. The handle also had a gun grip on it, with her hand on it. The chains also had sharp shards of metal around it, and since it was made of energy, it had a rather limitless range.

All in all, people would question a person's sanity why would they want to fight a girl that had a Cheshire cat grin that looked like a broken slasher smile, holding a staff scythe with sharp weapons fitted to almost every single angle and space, and the other one is a ball of steel with as many sharp objects you can cramp to it that is attached to a arm cannon look-alike handle.

"Damn, that's some weapon right there." Black commented again, this time cold sweating. "That surely drops my chance of getting a win for me, or even getting a stalemate."

"Ehe_heh_ehehe! _Lif_es! _So m_any liv_es_ eve_rywher_e! I c_an s_mell t_hem_! Th_ey'r_e ev_erywhe_re!" "Real" Lily Black laughed maniacally, and then looked to who "summoned" her. "Hey, _boss_, wh_ich_ _one s_hou_ld I _kill? _The on_e th_at looked _almost ex_actly li_ke me, _the surrou_nding, or ma_ybe, all _of _you_?! Ha_hahah_aha!"

The way the illusion sounded as her voice turned high pitched in some part unnerved everyone, but the one that still had the composure is, of course, Shikieiki. "You may fight the one that looked almost exactly like you, but you will take care of the surroundings, and you will watch who you are going to hit."

"_No Pro_mises on _eith_er p_ar_t, ah_aha_haha!" "Real" Lily Black answered, and looked to her opponent again. "G_et re_ady for _som_e beat_ing up, _me!"

Without any other words, "Real" Lily Black pointed the mace ball towards her opponent, and clicked a trigger on the gun grip.

JDOR!

The ball soared through the air, and the blast also looked like something exploded from within the "gun" that sent shockwaves as the aftermath. Lily Black moved out of the balls way in an instant, going towards the left. "Real" Lily Black grinned maniacally while watching her opponent, and jerked the "gun" to follow her. With it being at a long battle arena, the force has to be sent through the chains first, before reaching the ball, and abruptly changing the direction. Lily Black moved downwards to let the chains soar past her hat in a few inches, barely grazing it, making it miss the intended target, and soared towards Sariel. The latter immediately brought up a bluish white barrier, and also got reinforced by purplish barrier, Shinki aiding her friend.

"INCO_MIN_G!" "Real" Lily Black shouted in glee as she watched the ball effortlessly crushed the barriers, catching Sariel off guard, and the ball to "attach" itself towards Sariel's chest.

"AAAAAKH!" Sariel screamed on top of her lungs when the ball connected itself to her.

"Ah, D_amn_it, it's go_ing to be _hard le_tting t_he ball _go a_gain." "Real" Lily Black said as she tugged the chains. "Oh w_ell, at least_ some_one_ is s_ingi_ng! Geee_heheh_ehehe!"

Before Shikieiki can even remind her about her battle rule, "Real" Lily Black pressed something from the handle, and throws it upwards, before the handle speeds its way towards the ball. "And A_waaaaay_ it _goes_!"

Right after releasing the "gun", "Real" Lily Black teleported herself towards Lily Black's back, and nearly scored a hit as Lily Black managed to defend herself from the staff scythe using her own scythe.

"Guh!" Lily Black cringed as her scythe made contact with "Real" Black's scythe staff. The difference of power was massive, and Black knows it. "Dang it! Can't… overpower… her!"

"C_om_e on me, _you ca_n do bet_ter t_han th_at_!" Her other counterpart shouted in manic glee. "I'm expecting more from myself!"

"Your voice… it's not…" Black said as she realized her illusion counterpart words are not high pitched in some random part. She then narrowed her eyes and asked, "You're just… acting, were… you not?"

"I knew you would know sooner or later." The illusion said with a genuine smile now. "I'm just acting in front of them, even though I should tell you something given the chance I have now. Time's not exactly on my side."

"Real" Lily Black suddenly jerked back her hand as if to make Lily Black seemed to manage to overpower her, and the latter managed to score a deep diagonal slash from the lower part up to the shoulder. But she noticed one thing that's different from her illusion.

"You're not…"

"_Ehe_he, id_iot_!"

Before Black can point out the difference between herself and her illusion's difference, the latter stabbed her sword towards her chest, and before the former can even scream in pain, she was send rocketing downwards, slamming into the ground. The force of the throw was enough to make a body print on the ground, and still leaving it to make Lily Black bounce back a couple of ten feet into the air.

"GYAAA-HMPH!"

Before she could try to hold to her opponent, one of her eye was not blocked by her illusion's hand, and thus could see that her illusion glanced to her side first, before she looked at her again, and both of the plummeted towards the ground, with Lily Black being smacked into the ground. Her scream were muffled by her illusion's hand.

"Sorry about that, got to convince that you'll lose first." Her illusion said as she retracted her arm back. She could see that the real Lily Black was looking fine, with some hairs here and there, but those who could notice her shallow breath and pleading eyes would know better. "Yeah yeah, I'll stop. Geez, and I thought I'm not going overboard. Looks like you still had that syndrome."

"Wha… what syn…drome?" Black wheezed out while trying to ignore the pain.

"It's a syndrome I named myself, really, I call it overloaded syndrome." "Real" Lily Black said with a shrug. "Basically it's the reason why your pain senses is being amplified."

"You… know…"

"Yes, but it's not because of your body." "Real" Lily Black said while pointing her "sword" near her heart. "It's even deeper inside your heart. Your body is more like a dam, waiting to burst out everything behind the dam. In your case, your power is the content of the dam, while your body is the dam. I bet you haven't known that your current power, as in yourself, is only the tip of the iceberg."

"W-Wha…"

"I know, pretty shocking, huh." The illusion said with a sigh, before resting the scythe staff on her shoulder. The blades that are sticking out from the staff made her shoulder bleed, but she didn't even as much flinch in pain. "When that dam burst, you'll be like me. When your pain senses amplifies your pain, it's because your body is still trying to contain the massive amount of your power. If you're now like me, in full power, because the dam burst, pretty much everything that harms you will almost be nullified by your pain sense, so you won't actually feel any pain when you got hurt by something. That's the reason why I didn't even scream in pain when you gave that slash."

The illusion then opened her free hand, and created a black ball on it. "But with your current power, you can also make this, a ball that will explode upon contact, and pretty much ignores every power used to nullify or avoid it. Come on, try to make one."

Black nodded weakly, and she opened one palm at the ground, before she concentrated her power there. The process took slowly since she wasn't concentrating hard, but she manages to make that ball.

"Took too long, but that's okay, since you're still trying to ignore the massive amount of pain from your body." The illusion said, and then realized that she was starting to fade away. "Damn, not much time left. Hey, listen to me, me. In the near future, your "dam" will break, alongside your mind, and you will act just like when I was acting earlier, so be prepared to lose something precious to you. By the time you realized it, it'll be too late."

Black frowned in confusion as to what her illusion just said and even more confused when the illusion she saw tears coming out from one of her eyes before the illusion fades completely, at the same time Shikieiki descends from the sky, along with Shinki and the still in pain Sariel. The wound was visible, and it doesn't look like it'll heal soon. "So, you got defeated." Eiki stated. "And you're confident about having at least a stalemate."

Black chuckled weakly in her crater. "I knew… not calling you… with… honorifics… will give me… a bad karma, Miss… Eiki. My power… is no match… for my true… self."

"Now, it is time for your lecture. I believe you can't run away due to your injuries you have sustained."

Black groaned inside. What Shikieiki just said was right. She can't teleport since her body aches so much, so she can only hope that the lecture won't be for hours. But during the speech, her mind was only thinking about what her illusion said.

"Be prepared… to lose… something precious… to me. By the… time you… realized it, it'll… be too late. What are you… trying to say… other me?" Black weakly said in the middle of the speech.

* * *

Author's note : I don't really have anything to say right now, really.

Next Chapter : The human village


	9. The human village

Author's note : Aaand I finally updated! So sorry for that, since real life started messing with me, internet has given me things to make me get hooked to it, and my laptop can't get the frakking screen on, which is where I usually write this story, and now I'm using someone else's laptop. Overall, a mess. So yeah, sorry for that. But anyway, here's an update, and I hope things would start to roll smoothly again!

* * *

Ugh, finally, she's gone. Now I can see why most people don't want to confront her. If you win against her, you don't really gain much, and if you lose, you'll have to hear her lecturing you for hours about to correct your sins and somewhere along those line so that you don't have to be sent to hell for your sins.

Personally, even if I don't have much, as she called it, I have to lay down on my back, trying to ignore the pain after the battle, and hear her lecturing me, for a good nine hours. NINE HOURS! I know I have a lot by having to vent my anger, but seriously! By all the Gods out there in the multi-verse, I'm going to stay far away from her, as far as I can, just so I don't have to sit down hearing her lecturing me! No freaking wonder that Yakumo doesn't even want to be near with her!

Okay, calm down… calm down… It's for my good too, and I should be grateful about that. But seriously, the lecturing is really long and boring! I can change on a whim if I want to, and I want my time to be much more… at least not that boring! That much I can…

…Ah, you're already here? Ahem, sorry about my ranting earlier, got to let out some steam. My senses drop down when I have to rant about something. So, how much have you heard?

…When I started? Huh, and I thought it would much later than that. Well, certainly, as annoying as it was, you heard about me saying about multi-verse. This weird person, as he called himself the Invisible Observer, told me to change his position for now, since he was rather busy about something. Just because I like observing doesn't mean I like it when people told me to do so, and the fact that I only have to think about something and you can hear it is a rather annoying thing, and I can't turn it off using my power.

Well, about the multi-verse. As you can see, or as you have followed that Invisible Observer so far, I can kill immortal and lesser gods easily if I want to. I may lack proof, that being said from my mouth, but if I can kill a god from another universe, **why would I say that to other people? **Yeah, if you're suspecting that I killed a god from another dimension, then you're right. Why? That's because said god is a total douche that threatens 'his' people to worship 'him' so that he can be all powerful, and that no one can beat him. How did he threaten 'his' people? Through the wrath of the world under 'his' disposal, and some guards at 'his' disposal, that's how.

…And that also means that there are universes made by people from novels and other written stuff, like a fiction. I shudder to think about other universe that might as well be another totally different Gensokyo. So far, I found none. Yet.

You have seen me teleport everywhere since you're following that Invisible Observer, right? That's pretty much it, thought at a much grander scale. That's it. Expecting something a lot more complicated? Too bad. Oh, and the place I got teleported was random. Only after I stayed there long enough I can go back there whenever I want to. And with my current power, since my power is still…at the tip of the iceberg…I have to at least rest for about a year and a half before I could teleport back to my universe, if that universe is a new one that I haven't got teleported yet. Sheesh, and I thought I was holding back by a lot by not killing everyone that I have to fight earlier.

So, anyway, how that happened; it was after about a year and a third. The people was being herded somewhere, and some even stopped to tell me to turn back and head to a field, to pray, as they say it. I never really cared since I'm not a religious… creature, or whenever they're being herded, I simply teleported somewhere else, and also, I'm pretty sure you don't look that scared and worried when you're going to pray, so I decided to ignore every warning, until I spotted several people in heavy armor at the back of the herd.

The armor was pretty exquisite, I tell you. The upper half was totally adorned with ribbons, jewelries, silver, gold, and writings about their language I never tried to decipher, since I usually can translate them after I stayed long enough. The time varies though, and so I can't tell you how long exactly till that happen, but that didn't really get transferred into my eye, however, so I never bother to read about the books in other dimensions. The lower part was also glittered with the same stuff. They were wearing a helmet too, like in the medieval ages, complete with the face mask. They were holding tridents, and they told me to "Get going or face the consequence."

Threat never really worked on me, since I can just plow my way through, so I decided to ignore them and continued my walk, until they pointed the trident at me. I slap it away so that it gets out of my way, but got a bit too much power on my slap, so the trident got snapped (it was made of steel), and flew quite far away, before it latched itself on one of the buildings. The shocked look on the guard that pointed the trident at me was not amusing, since I can't see his face, and it didn't last long till someone properly stabbed me. It hit my arm. And… you can guess what happens next.

In case you're wondering, I personally prefer being killed than being wounded, due to my own reasons. Being a shinigami fairy, one of the good traits of it is that after I got killed, when I got resurrected, the pain was not transferred back to me, so the pain ended quickly. In other words, I prefer quick death than pain. If it was the latter, I make sure that they pay the consequences. Or as your universe called it, I'm more like a glass cannon, due to my pain senses being amplified, but if you managed to kill me after badly beating me, which wouldn't take more than a couple of heavy blows, then say hello to a fresh me, ready for another round.

The battle ended as quickly as a minute passed by. The 'guards' were hopelessly curb stomped. Their supposedly heavy armor was shredded into useless scrap of metal that's only worth its rare metal and jewelries that adorned it, their body parts was strewn here and there, and there's blood practically everywhere, me included as well, and I think I'll stop there due to my words might upped something about rating or something like that. The people that got herded were absolutely shocked too, and were also frightened how I beat the supposedly unbeatable 'guards'. Some even fainted on spot.

In this case, I pretty much go with what people say when they complained about blood staining your clothes: It's sticky, really hard to clean, and, most of all, raised people's suspicion by a whole lot more. I mean, what in the sane mind would you do when you see a person walking down the street with blood all over him/her/it?

It didn't take for a full five minutes worth of waiting that the douche god to appear, wearing nothing more than a white robe and is a rather young looking man. He looked visibly shocked about the death of his 'guards'. He then pointed at me, being the one in the middle of the carnage, and was the most bloodied of all the surroundings (environment not counted), and challenged me for a duel to the death for disobeying order.

I haven't got the "Settle things without force" trademark with me in my earlier days, so I never think long about duels or try to settle things the peaceful way. Back then, I only have "If you don't annoy me too much, then I don't care" for my trademark, and I mean it when I have that. I have the former after an incident, but that's for later.

After the challenge, with my hands clasped in front of me, I mock pleaded to the 'god' for forgiveness. I don't have any particular respect for anyone back in the earlier days, you know. And that "plead" clearly flip him out, since he called a thunder to strike my place right where I used to be if I didn't jump back. Since I clasped my hands, I can't fight back, still mocking him after the warning thunder. That released the trigger. Earth, wind, water, fire, light, and basically what he can throw at me, he throws at me. You should see his angered face when he can't even land a single hit on me, but sadly, you can't.

I got bored of dodging after several minute worth of doing so, so I decided to take a battle stance, and that's when I realized I have a scythe without me knowing it. Without thinking much, I grabbed the hilt, and teleported towards the god, before I beheaded him in a single swing. The head flew to the air for a couple of second, before it fall down to earth, rolling as it did so. I waited for a couple of minutes, since gods are faith based, so they are practically immortal as long as people continue to give gods some sort of that faith or whatever that is they needed to survive, and in those couple of minutes too, the silent was deafening.

And then, someone clapped their hand, followed by some more. And then cheers began to shout. Some people that are near me ran towards me, and then lifted me up. I was too confused to even know what was going on back then. After a party of a day full, and a couple interrogation that I noticed that they don't like that god, and have been threatening the people to worship him. Heck, even most of the guards are there. I feel glad that I helped them involuntarily, but with my now realized power, I decided to finish the party prematurely by teleporting somewhere, and tried again. When it worked, I grinned so wide that people could tell that I was thinking something very, very wrong.

Then, after three more months staying and being praised as their hero, that I teleported back to this universe, before teleporting to another random universe. I immediately asked about some evil doings gods some people that I met after I understand what they just said, and they were worried about it at first, but since I pried it from them they told me several of the gods there. During the stays I had slain some of the god's weird creation. I hacked, slashed, maimed, killed, and all those sort things. When I reached the god, he already rallied with some more of the evil gods that the people told me, with one unknown god watching from the distance.

When the god asked me why I was going after him, I responded with "Keeping the world clean from evil doers" kind of words. And without more than that, I teleported, behead the god, and teleported again to the nearest one, doing the same thing. Rinse and repeat until all the bad gods are killed. They barely even made resistance, probably due to the shock though. The one that are watching me are shocked about me killing the gods so easily, and then go somewhere I don't know, only to be confronted by the very same god with several more of the unknown ones. He told me to stop doing whatever I was doing, and I only laughed after hearing that, before I punched him straight at the face after I teleported towards him. I didn't have any malice towards them, now that my theory is proven, so I just beat the living heaven out of them.

A couple of days passed from that day, and an angel descended in front of me, telling me that he was a messenger from God and he told me to stop killing the evil gods. I disagreed, since I don't see why I should stop doing that, and so, the inevitable fight happened. The angel almost won the fight, but I managed to steal the win in the end by sucker punching him at the last moment, making him unconscious, and then teleported to a far place, trying to lose track of the angel, and resting as I did so. Sadly, that didn't work, since after several days later, another one appeared, and I didn't even bother to try and fight again, I ran away immediately.

And don't start asking why I didn't run away from Sariel-sama. She's a good angel, unlike the others.

Some more time passed, with me killing more evil gods and running from the angels that came to stop me, until I crossed my path with Him, an old looking man that somehow I can't recall how His features looked like, but I just know that He was old. He told me to stop killing the gods so that I don't disrupt the balance of the world I'm in right now, and I disagreed like I usually did, before I launched myself towards the old man, trying to no more than just punching Him in the stomach, since I thought He was just an old man.

I blinked, and I already flat on my back on a nearby wall, completely have no idea of what just happened, before the pain reached my brain. I screamed, and I found myself already in the road, before I was in front of the old man again, with me laying on the ground. It happened too fast, so fast in fact that my senses couldn't even sent the pain to my brain in time. He asked me to stop again. I complied this time, having no more strength due to the pain (It hurts a lot, I tell you), and totally have no idea on how I was supposed to beat Him. I mean, He was just standing there, not moving an inch, and I was tossed around like a ragdoll by Him.

I asked Him who He was, and He only answered with this sentence: God of all the Gods. I asked to elaborate, and He told me with the term: Creator of the World. I asked again for the final clarification, and He told me: The Absolute, The Creator of the World, and lastly, The One and only.

My spine shivered involuntarily so hard after hearing those words. I maybe not a religious person, but at least I acknowledged that there must be at least someone who is all powerful enough that can bent reality and made the world do His bidding just by mere thought. Now, of course I would be scared to the very one of my soul when He came for you personally.

…Well, who wouldn't when you're visited by the real one and only God? The most of the most ultimate in all of the universe, to visit you, told some sense into your brain, and beat you up like you're nothing compared to him? And it took me three questions to finally realized how screwed up I am. Luckily, thought, He then only lectured me to change, and I complied without a heartbeat. The rest is history, and that's how I became what I was now.

…And now I'm telling you about my history. One question was asked, and I told with quite a lot of answer and about my history. *Sigh* And I was told to observe that soldier. Oh well, before getting sidetracked again, without further ado, let's find a vacant tree that's good for observing!

* * *

Hmm, this looks good enough, not too far so that I can't hear him, and also not too close so that I won't be seen easily.

And it was already morning too, probably about six in the morning since the sun is starting to rise up, the birds are chirping happily, and that Kotomi, our soldier, was still sleeping rather comfortably while leaning towards a nearby support for the shrine. I don't know if that's comfortable or not, but if the occupation he's in when I looked into his memories, then that would be one of the comfortable places for him.

…Especially since one of his memories have him sleeping on hot sand, only covered by a worm-like bag. At least I think it's uncomfortable.

Hmm? The air around the shrine yard… Ah, there must be someone that got spirited away after visiting the other shrine at the outside world.

After a couple more seconds, the air stopped moving, and on the shrine ground, was now two teenage girls standing, one of them carrying a rather heavy looking baggage. And it looks like it's the two girls from that club. What was they named it again… ah, yes, the sealing club. A weird name, to be honest.

"Hey, Renko, should we go now, or should we wait until Reimu-san wakes up?" The one that almost looked like Yukari, Maribel Hearn, asked.

The other one, wearing her usual white shirt and knee-length skirt, Renko Usami, looked up to the sky, her hat not falling from her head.

"Well, Reimu-san usually wakes up around seven, and now it's still six past twenty three minutes twenty four seconds in the morning, so we still have about thirty six minutes and thirty four… three seconds to wait." Renko answered. I'm still wondering how she can tell time just by looking at the sky, the stars to be exact, and since there's still some glittering, she can still tell the time, but she probably can do it either day or night since the sun is a star too. But then again, some powers are just like that, plain weird and hard to explain. And that doesn't even include that woman that can predict the future just by looking at the stars. "We should just wait right now." She added.

They both turned towards the shrine, and got a good look at the still quietly sleeping soldier.

"Hey, isn't that Horikawa-san?" Maribel asked, sounding a bit surprised. "Why is he sleeping outside? And doesn't he…"

"Well, he's okay, at least. That, I can tell." Renko answered quickly, before she smiled. "Hey, why don't we just persuade him to escort us to the village?"

"Oooh, good idea, Renko!" Maribel agreed instantly, clapping her hands. "Let's wake him up now!"

Renko nodded immediately, and walked to the soldier. After she reached him, she put her hands on Kotomi's shoulder, and shook the soldier. "Horikawa-san, wake up. It's morning now."

"Mmmh…" He grumbled, but complied anyway. Straightening himself, Renko let go of his shoulder, and the latter immediately started stretching all his available joints, some cracking noises can be heard, being followed by a yawn.

"Did you have a good sleep, Horikawa-san?" Maribel asked while walking to the soldier, before sitting at the shrine porch. "That position didn't really seem comfortable."

"Better than sleeping on the battlefield, surrounded by enemies." Kotomi answered lazily, scratching his back. "So, how're you two doing? Good?"

"Couldn't be better!" Renko answered hastily, plopping down near her friend. "Oh, can you escort us to the village, Horikawa-san, since Reimu-san usually wakes up rather late."

"Hmm…" He mused about it for a while, and then his face smiled a little. "Seven is not really late, Sayaka, you should know that."

Sayaka? Who's he talking…

Ah, the sentient-made gun.

"Horikawa-san?" Renko asked, her head tilting to her side. "Who's Sayaka?"

"My gun." Kotomi answered without looking at her, and his smile turned bitter. "You see, after saving the both of you, many things… happened."

"Many things happened?" Maribel parroted, looking confused. "What do you mean…" She trailed off, before she looked shocked. "Your back!"

The soldier smiled a slight wider, but still looking bitter. "No, my back is fine now, due to those many things that happened after saving you girls." The soldier assured them, and looked to the sky. "A lot happened in a single day. A lot more than a single mission that turns really ugly."

"What happened, Horikawa-san?" Renko asked, her face turning serious. "Surely, this means something than just you bleeding to death."

"Actually, that's one of the things that happened." The soldier pointed out, the girl that asked the question blinked in surprise. "But… I got saved at the last minute before I died, as someone injected something into my body. Then I wake up in a demon world, become a servant to one of the demons, my gun is now sentient, and here I am now, probably being watched by a ridiculously overpowered not-a-fairy but still a fairy."

…That's a totally simplified explanation of what happened yesterday. And I'm so going to wreck his head when given the chance. Maybe he can still suffer brain damage.

"A-ah, I see…" Renko said, still trying to digest the information, probably. "So, you ran away, then."

"No, my mistress is inside the shrine, probably still sleeping." Kotomi said, before the door opened. "And looks like she's awake now."

Both the girls looked back, looking directly at Mai as she close the door, a cup of tea in her hand, and she sat down near her servant, before calmly sipping the tea, all the while still being looked by the two girls. Either the ice demon didn't care, or she's just that oblivious to her surroundings.

"Good morning, mistress, did you get a good sleep last night?" Kotomi asked, turning his full attention to his master. When the latter nodded, he hummed for a while. "So, do you need anything else?"

"No." The ice demon answered firmly, before sipping her tea again.

Kotomi's smile turned gentler, and he shook his head slowly. "Well, there's my mistress. Barely needing anything."

"Err… yeah, that's pretty convenient. I guess." Renko said hesitantly, unsure of what to say. Well, given the situation, I'm pretty sure I would too. "So, how about it?"

"About what?" Kotomi asked, tilting his head to the side. Maribel and Renko looked at the soldier with a blank look, and Mai only glanced to him for a few seconds, before she turned her gaze towards the cup again. "What?"

"The escort?" Maribel asked this time. In that instant too, Kotomi remembered that. And honestly saying, I'm surprised that he already forgotten that. Must be because of his sleepiness.

"Ah, yes." Kotomi sheepishly said, scratching the back of his head in shame. "I could, but if my mistress doesn't mind, then-"

"I don't." Mai cut him short, and she placed down the tea on the floor. "I don't really mind. Also, this counts as some sort of travelling." She elaborated.

Kotomi looked to his master in confusion, before his smile turned wider, and he stands up. "Well, guess we started get going, then." He said, before he put his hand on his stomach area. Judging from the way all three girls looked at him, he probably did something embarrassing. "Ah, sorry, I haven't eaten since my last breakfast."

"It's no problem, we're not in a hurry anyway." Maribel assured the soldier, as the latter sighed in relief, I guess.

"Eat on the road." Mai piped in suddenly, standing up as she did. "Don't want to waste time lazing around the shrine."

"Fine, fine." Kotomi shook his hand dismissively, and looked at the two girls. "Well, as my master said, I'll eat on the road. Come on, get up, and I shall escort you to the village."

Maribel looked hesitant after hearing the declaration, but she then stands up, followed suit by Renko. A look to Kotomi's face said that he was pleased by the situation, and then, the two girls walked to stairs, followed by the soldier and his master. After the group was now gone from my line of sight, I waited for several seconds, to see if something is going to happen.

Well, nothing happened, so let's find another tree so that I can continue my observation.

* * *

Nothing much happened on the road, really, what with every youkai that tried to attack the group either ran away after looking at the soldier, or they got get into the afterworld pretty quickly by the soldier, Mai when she got attacked, and surprisingly enough, Renko, using a small L looking like object. Kotomi also sometimes commented about getting into the military or something like that to Renko, but the latter simply says no.

The soldier keeps on persuading her, but eventually, since Renko is pretty stubborn, he gave up. But that didn't change the fact that he asked how she got so good using guns. Basically, she only told that his father is a soldier, and that his father taught her how to use some guns and basic defensive skill. And she also added that her mother is an astronomer. That certainly leads to her power, even if indirectly.

Eventually, after some more chatting and killing stupidly brave youkais, with Mai only occasionally talking, they reached the outskirts of the village, with some houses and stores outside the fences and gate from the center of the village.

"Well, thanks for the escort, Horikawa-san." Maribel said while bowing to their escort, with the soldier bowing back.

"No big deal." The soldier said, before his stomach demanded food again. "Though, I think I'll look for some food inside."

"Then follow us! I know a good place to eat!" Renko piped in as she put the gun back to her bag.

"No thanks." Kotomi rejected the offer for what reason I don't know. "I'll look for the place myself."

"Well, okay, then." Renko replied, and then walked to the gate with Maribel following behind her, told the two guards there who they are, and went deeper into the village.

"So, you're not going to do it?" Mai asked suddenly, looking to her servant.

"Do what?" Kotomi asked, as he stretched his hand, and then…

Oh God, what the hell, Kotomi? You make your own arm into freaking food. What the hell.

"That." Mai said with a little sign of disgust. Seriously, why would someone want to eat a piece of their own body? "And you're going to eat your own arm."

"Who cares, its food." Kotomi shrugged carelessly, bringing his arm into his…

Sorry, I can't watch that. Way too disgusting, even for me. I may have seen completely out of shape humans, but at least it's not that bad. Eating your own self… No. Just… no.

* * *

"Ah, that hit the spot." Oh good, looks like he's done eating his own arm. "Oh, how I almost forgot eating that chicken."

"You know, you can just stuff that food into your stomach." Mai pointed out. I agree with her, by the way. "That way, people can just, well, not get disgusted by it."

"Well, that's a good idea." Good, at least he agreed with that. "But I digress. Eating from your mouth is way better than just stuffing it into your stomach."

…Great, so much for that.

"Anyway, making your ability mundane aside, let's go into the village." Mai said as she walked towards the gate, followed by her servant.

"What about your wings? I mean, this isn't named human village for nothing, right?" Kotomi asked, looking doubtful.

"There are youkais inside too, but only the ones that stay neutral, or good, or downright can't be stopped." Mai answered, and shivered a bit. "Including that youkai."

"That youkai?" Kotomi asked, tilting his head to the side. "Who's that youkai?"

"Yuuka Kazami." Mai answered, terror filling her face. "Whatever you do, don't go near her, or her garden. Especially her garden. You pluck one of her flowers; you'll be fertilizer in a second."

Ah, that youkai. Yeah, she's a powerhouse alright. I got into dispute with her sometimes, and always ended with a draw. Unlike angels that don't hold back, she holds back, since more of her sinister side is on her other half. And if she can take on Shinki one on one, and that she can go and harass those two gods of their dream world, then she's on my level. And with that, I also respect her.

"…Well, since I don't want to be a fertilizer, I'll note that." Thankfully, Kotomi is no idiot.

They stayed quiet until they reached the gate, where the guards stopped them.

"Hold it. What's your name, and what are you?" One of the guards asked, with the other simply looking at the two. The latter jaw opened as he looked to Kotomi, probably after reading the tengu newspaper.

"Ah, well, this is-" Kotomi said, but got cut short as the other guard closed their distance with the other guard.

"Dude, you don't recognize him? He's the one that took care of a lot of youkais! The description matched perfectly!" The other guard almost shouted, making the other guard cringe due to the proximity of his partner. "Hey, what's your name, and who's that girl? Certainly, you outsider are not like the ones that usually got here."

"Well, I'm Kotomi Horikawa, a soldier from the outside world, as you call it." Kotomi introduced himself, after the first attempt failed. "And this right here is…"

"Mai." Mai cut her servants words. "A youkai. Not a bad one."

"Well, surely, you can just say that." The first guard remarked.

"This human saved me from several more of the youkais in the forest."

…Wait, did she just make up a story? Does she even know the story of the newspaper?

"Oh, you mean the fourteen youkais in the forest? But why? Surely, youkais doesn't attack each other." The second guard asked. He's smart, I can tell that.

"…I don't know about that too. They just attacked me suddenly." Mai said with a grimace. Kotomi looked like he was swallowing rock, seriously.

…Wait, I can jump into the story too. Maybe it'll snap him out of his trance.

Teleporting to the back of a house, I stepped out into the road, looking my best to look both confused and sad. "Mai-chan…"

"Black?" Mai asked, looking towards me. The three men also looked at me. Following my plan, I beamed at the sight, and flew towards the girl.

"Mai-chan!" I said, before burying my face into the girl's stomach. "Black is glad you're okay! Black wanted to help earlier, but my friends told me not to!"

"B-Black…" Mai said, sounding confused. I lifted my face from her stomach, and winked my right eye to her. She looked even more confused, by then get the message. Smiling, she continued the plan. "Yeah, I'm okay. Thanks for worrying me."

"And who's that guy?" I asked, glaring to Kotomi. Poor soldier looked even more confused than before. He probably didn't expect this to happen, even with his motto still running.

"That's Kotomi-san, who helped me against the bad youkais." Mai answered with a small smile.

"Really? Black is not sure. He looks weak." I said with a bit of skepticism in my voice, tightening my grip on Mai's dress. Mai shook her head slowly, a small smile on her face.

"Don't judge people from the looks, Black-chan, it's not polite to do so." Mai scolded me lightly.

"A-ah." And that finally snaps him out of his trance. "Yeah, uhh, Black. It's not good to judge people just from the looks." He added his two cents, and then looked at the two guards. "So, are you satisfied now?"

"Well, it does look promising." The second guard muttered while looking at me, and I kept my eyes locked on to him with a childish glare I could muster. "Oh hell, she's cute. You all can come in."

"Thank you very much, and sorry for the trouble." Mai said while bowing. "We'll make sure not to cause any trouble in the village."

Without any further chit-chatting, our group went into the village, with me hearing the two guards arguing. After a couple more steps, Kotomi sighed. "Seriously, did you have to make that story?" He grumbled, obviously not pleased by the made up story.

"What's Kotomi-san talking about Mai-chan? Black doesn't understand it." I said while looking to Mai. The latter shrugged.

"I have no idea, Black-chan." She added, much to the soldier's annoyance.

"Stop the drama acting and get back to your own persona, damnit." He grumbled again.

"Well, at least the story helps." Mai said, and her face turned cold again. "Though, it's fun while doing so. Right, Black-san?"

I looked to Mai with confusion on my face, and then sighed. "Well, at least they believed it." I said, dropping the posture of childishness. "I simply had the urge to jump in and make the story a bit more interesting."

"And it worked greatly that my brain gets a BSOD." Kotomi said, still grumbling. I don't know what this B-S-O-D is, but it ought to be something not really important, so I ignored it. "Anyway, where to now?"

"Well, you're the one that wanted to travel the village." I pointed out, which Kotomi then looked to the side. "You can just go around, find a place to stay, or anything."

He grumbled something again, but decided that the best course of action was to stay silent, and went to the center of the village. Mai and I followed her, and our group becomes the center of attention in no time, mostly to the soldier. He didn't like it one bit, though.

It doesn't take long for the three of us to reach the center of the village. In it was the dragon statue, it's eyes was some sort of magical gem that can predict the weather for the present day, which is a clear sky blue, indicating it will be clear for the rest of the day. There's also the building that indicates the place where the leader of the village takes place. Some shops and stalls here and there, and some houses too, but there's one place I didn't like one bit about it.

"A church? Here?" Kotomi asked while looking to the building. It is a simple building, really, made completely out of wood, stained glass on the windows with Christian cross in the middle of the glass. It also had a towering part of it, with another cross on top of the pointy roof.

And that is also the building that I didn't like one bit about it.

"Yeah, because of a certain incident that a false apocalypse about angels and the Morning Star fighting." I said, my voice clearly indicating my harshness. And Kotomi didn't seem to realize this little thing, or he doesn't care.

"Huh? You mean, there are angels here too?" Kotomi asked.

"No, but they do sometimes come down and help spread the religion. It's a slow progress, really, but it's a progress. Some was interested, and some simply got intimidated by them." I answered.

"Does the angel look like Sariel?" Mai piped in.

I shook my head. "Yes, and no, their clothing is much more extravagant, unlike the humbleness that Sariel-sama wore." I answered. "And to think that the closest angel to god also comes down too..."

"The closest angel to god? As in Michael?" Kotomi asked again. And for someone that isn't part of the religion, he's pretty well informed.

"Yeah, though here "he" was more of a woman, and is named Michel." I answered again, correcting him too. "And you know about these things too. Was it because of your friends?" I asked this time.

He smiled slightly, and nodded. "Yes, being with them certainly gave me knowledge about those kind of things."

"Well, you better be careful, what with you bringing demons near them." I pointed out. Kotomi nodded, before he shot a look at me, his face completely pale.

Ah, yeah, he was part of a demon himself.

"A-ah, noted sharply." He meekly said, and looked to Mai. "Let's go then. I'll inspect the village more after we find a place to stay."

"Yes, that would be good." Mai agreed, and looked to her stomach. "And I want to eat something too. And not from a part of your body, thank you very much." She emphasized the word "not", clearly not wanting that.

"As you say, mistress." Kotomi bowed, and took the lead again, this time going away from the center of the village.

* * *

Cklink.

"Ah, welcome sir, and… madam. What can I help you on this good day?"

We're currently in a small, modest inn, named Satomi's inn, with an old man greeting us. Not really old, though, looking about his fifty or so, and most of his hair had whitened due to age. His clothing was like most of the villagers, a kimono of the sort, I don't really care about clothing. And the walk is boring, so I skip the story of it.

"Do you have a vacant room for three? We need a place to stay right now." Kotomi asked, his hand behind him as he prepared something.

"Ah, of course. Let me check the list first." The inn keeper said, and shuffled through his book on his counter table. Not long afterwards, he looked at the soldier again. "There are three vacant rooms right now, sir."

Kotomi nodded, and asked. "How much is the price?"

"Well, for each day, you pay for about one hundred and twenty yen." The inn keeper said. It's reasonable, really, but if Kotomi was planning to stay here, and that the price also includes other things, then he'll keep his decision.

Kotomi nodded again. "Do you accept any other kind of payment? Like some gold, perhaps?"

This clearly took the inn keeper by surprise. He just said his price, and now Kotomi was willing to pay him with gold. A real gold, made from parts of his body.

Surely, Shinki sometimes makes weird and useful things when she's bored.

"W-what do you mean, sir?" He asked for clarification. "You're willing to pay me with gold?"

Kotomi didn't answer, and simply put his hand from his back to his front; on it was a shining gold bar. The inn keeper was, of course, shocked by the display.

"I am willing to pay you with gold." Kotomi said, in it was a bit of finality in the tone. No room for bargaining, but who was going to argue with being paid by gold? It was, universally, a rare metal, and a really valuable one too. Kotomi sure knows how to put his power into use, even if mundane ones.

…And completely disgusting ones.

"Then allow me, Atsuhiko Satomi, the owner of this inn, to give you the most comfortable service as best as I could, for as long as you stayed here." The inn keeper, now identified as Atsuhiko (I'll call him with Satomi, though), declared. I already expect the back name, though, since it was clearly being written as the name of the inn.

Kotomi didn't waste any time in bantering, and put the gold on the table. I instinctively reached it, and poked it, to see if it was real or not. Well, that caught the attention of Satomi, though, so I'll play my little drama again.

"It's shiny…" I said in awe, as I keep poking it again. I could hear Kotomi snorted, probably believing that I haven't seen one yet. "Black likes it!"

It's hard as a metal it should be, so it should be real, and it doesn't look like it'll change back into gruesome flesh and bones and blood anytime sooner, so I keep poking it. Satomi smiled, and takes my hat, before making a mess of my hair. And he also takes the gold away. I pouted childishly, which makes the inn keeper chuckle.

"Quite a cute child you bring here." He said as he keeps making a mess out of my hair. "Let me show you the way to the room, mister…"

"Kotomi, Kotomi Horikawa." Kotomi said without missing a beat. Satomi in response stop rustling my hair, and put my hat back after tidying my hair again. I crossed my arms and looked away with a pout, making me look more like a child than my usual self.

"Follow me, then." Satomi said as he gestured our group to follow him deeper. We followed, passing some room that probably have occupants in it, and went upstairs. After turning left and passing two more room, he opened the door to our room. I peeked at how the room looked like.

Well, it's big, that one I can already guess. There were two windows on the walls that are faced to the center of the village, a sliding door where you usually put your futon in there, some paintings, a round table that you can put in the room, some pillows for sitting, overall, a pretty good place.

"Black likes the room." I commented as Kotomi entered the room and looked around. Mai followed shortly after. After some thorough looking (which makes us know that there are four futons instead of three, but who cares?), Kotomi nodded.

"This'll do nicely." He commented. "Oh, and do bring some green teas for us."

"And I want to eat some sushi." Mai piped in.

"I'll deliver it as fast I can." Satomi said, and then walked away from our room. I closed the door after I entered the room, and immediately plopped to the floor.

"Ahh, what a day…" I muttered.

"Yeah, I agree." Kotomi responded while lifting the table, and put it in the center of the room. "Though, what did you do earlier? Just watching us from afar and doing nothing, right?"

I chuckled after hearing his response. "Sure, you could say that, but I also had a rematch with the yama."

This perked Mai by a bit. "And the result?"

I shrugged. "I lost, as I predicted. Though I was planning on to make it a draw, or a stalemate, I was fighting my real self, not my current self. And the beating of the yama was just me throwing Miss Eiki twice, and she only retaliated once."

"Real self?" Kotomi asked for clarification. But before I can answer, he continued. "You mean, he used that spell card that makes you fight yourself? Then why is there a "current self" and "real self"? And please don't tell me something that I don't want to hear in the future."

"Well, yeah, that what she used. And the reason why added those two was…" I hesitated for a bit, since this will only mean bad news for both of them. Kotomi sighed while rubbing his forehead, while Mai still listened intently.

"Go on, tell me. I'm expecting something totally unacceptable." Kotomi said, pressing me to continue.

"Well, my "real self" said that in my "current self", my power is the tip of the iceberg, and that the answer to my body reacting to pain violently is because my body acts as a dam to hold my power back that strained the pain senses." I answered. "And that in the future, the dam burst, along with my mind, so you can expect some very bad things to happen in the future."

The shock was totally underestimated with the term extremely, since Mai turned as white as snow. Kotomi, on the other hand, already expected it. There was a minute worth of silence before Kotomi sighed.

"Great, more head ache for me in the future." He groaned, and banged the table with his head. The table is surprisingly much sturdier than I thought too. "Why… why God, why do you have to pull all these strings in the span of two days? Do you plan on making me suffer for something I haven't even done yet?"

"He's probably bored." I commented. I still left the part about me losing something precious to me. But it's up to me to solve that myself, probably in the span of the next days.

"But why me…" He muttered again. I feel pity for him, seriously. He barely got away from the first day he got here, and he's already suffering this much.

There was more silence as we waited for the teas and food for Mai. Mai had bowed down, still trying to digest the information, Kotomi had given up hope for living, I guess, and I don't have anything to do. The silence was finally put to an end by Satomi as he opened the door, with three cups of tea on it, and a plate of sushi.

"Here's your order." He said with a smile, and entered the room. He put down the teas to each of our side, and an additional plate full of sushi to Mai. "You must be tired from yesterday, right, Kotomi-san?"

"Yeah…" He mumbled as he straightened himself, and sipped the tea. "Ahh… just what I needed…"

"You can call me later if you need anything." Satomi said, and exited the room.

The room fell silent once again, as everyone minded their own business. Mai was silently eating, Kotomi was sipping the tea, probably savoring it, and I just looked at the tea. The answer that I said still lingered in my mind stubbornly, even if I tried to kill it. Eventually, I got fed of it, drank the tea really fast, and slumped down to the floor.

I need some goddamn rest, after all. Even if only to satiate my physical need.

* * *

Author's note : The next one will be from our soldier's POV, and he gets into trouble. Again. Yeah, I'm that bad to my own OC. And I also added one fangames into the story. I don't know why, but it complicates the problem for my OC. Yeah, again, I'm bad to my own OC.

And also, I'm planning to make Lily Black a "little" bit overpowered, but not overpowered enough for her current self to be able to win on a one on one fight with an angel, so don't expect her kicking angels rear easily before she snaps.

...Wait, my common sense part of my brain is now complaining to me, telling me that the creative part of my brain is getting overboard. Yeah, I can see a mess in my brain coming in the future too.

Anyway, see you guys on the next chapter!

Next Chapter : Divine problem


	10. Divine problem

Author's note : Hello again, readers! I sincerely apologize for the still long update, what with my connection filtering the site for "Adult contents" reason (God, i hate it when that happens.) and other stuff about that, but I managed to bypass it! So here you go, a new chapter, more story about "my" Lily Black (Still long, expect more on the next chapter), And I literally forgot that Lily Black shouldn't be kicking the angel's ass so easily.

...Huh, what's this? A letter?

"Dear author,

I have made you forget that part in order to make her overpowered from the very start, and I will certainly do it again if you do anything to weaken her.

Sincerely, Destiny."

...Ah. Crap. And I don't know who this Destiny is.

Anyway, here's the new chapter!

Now, to figure out who this Destiny is...

* * *

"Hah…" I exhaled my breath as I put down the cup that I used to drink the tea back on the table, before I leaned back, with my hands as the support. "Bad news, bad news, and more bad news for the future…"

I wasn't expecting some answer from my mistress as I spoke that, so after some second, I continued. "Say, mistress, can you call Shinki-sama here? I need to ask some questions."

Mai looked at me for a moment, analyzing me, and then nodded. She started chanting something gibberish, fast, and language that I don't understand, which probably would be her native language. After she stopped, a line appeared beside her, and then opened, with Makai on the other side of the now open line, and Shinki stepped out from the portal, the latter closing after the former stepped out.

"My, what did you call me, Mai? Is there something you need?" Shinki asked while sitting down beside her.

"Well, Kotomi here is the one that needs something, mother." Mistress answered. "Some questions to be answered, to be exact."

Shinki nodded slowly, before eyeing me warily. "Well, if it's from one of my children, you can ask as much as you can, Kotomi."

"Well, first of all, how you know Lily Black." I stopped as I looked the now sleeping shinigami fairy. "When I make a blind shot of how mistress met her, there's something about war. What kind of war are you talking about?"

Shinki closed her eyes after the question, probably remembering the event. "That happened several hundreds of years ago, when I, after I make Makai and its inhabitants, which probably still aged around fifteen years as its oldest back then, got attacked by hordes of youkai." She started, and then opened her eyes, making a sad smile. "Back then, I'm still new in godhood, so I have the power to stop them alone, but I don't know how back then. Yumeko and Mai helped me each time they attacked, since there are waves after waves of strong youkais that attacked, each only stopped by a span of thirty minutes, before another wave attacked. At that time too, Yuki was still learning to be a magician, and since her training place is so near the attacking spots, she's one of the defenders there. Her teacher even took the attack as an upped training for her, so Yumeko, Mai, and some more of my children helped me defend the newly made world."

"I think it was after four days more of defending, in which most of us are tired, that Lily Black appeared. At first, we thought she was one of the youkais that managed to past through our defenses, so we attacked her, in fear due to her finding our base of operation. It didn't go well." Mistress cringed after Shinki said that. Must be a long lasting memory… "Each attack was deflected like nothing, each hit that my children took sends them flying, until only I was the one in the room that was not knocked out cold, but at that time too, I was on the verge of it. I asked who she is, with kind of youkais of monster she is, since not even the most powerful youkais now, also counting Yukari and Yuuka, was present during the war, and I can tell just by the punches she sends at me is a bit more powerful than even Yuuka's."

Shinki scratched the back of her head, her face flushing slightly. "It turns out she was only curious about this whole war. They say curiosity killed the cat, but back then, the cat was me and my children, and there's no one killed. I told her everything I knew, about the sudden attack, the waves of attack, our defensive position, practically everything I know at that time. She nodded as she kept hearing my explanation, and asked if I would like her help. Without wasting even a second to consider the question, I accepted her help. Right after I accepted her help, the warning turned on again, signaling another wave of attacker. She looked at me for a moment, and I nodded, already knowing her question. She smiled a bit, and then vanished out of my view. I looked out from my spot, which is in the center of Makai, and looked in horror as the youkais that attacked was hopelessly curb-stomped."

Shinki stopped to take a breath, which she probably wouldn't need since she was a goddess and all, but rather to pause for the story, to let me sink the story so far. So far, I didn't have a hard time digesting it, what with all the crap that I have been subjected in barely two days. If she can kill gods easily and beat all of her… children without any problem, I can already know that she's beating a wave full of strong youkais like they're nothing.

"Wave after wave she hold back by her own, all of our defenses was both in awe and horror as she knocked out most of youkais. Since they were knocked out, I told my children to bring them to the prison, where I would ask them one by one. She kept knocking out the youkais, before one of them managed to land a punch that sends her flying to one of the building."

I involuntarily winced as I heard the last sentence. There's only one possible outcome after that, if pestering her to call her by her front name and being called a fairy is a good example.

"It becomes a slaughter?" I asked, preparing myself.

She shook her head with a small sad smile forming on her lips, and if it weren't for the latter, I would've let out a sigh in relief. "An understatement." She said, answering the answer that I already expected. "It's a one sided mass genocide. The youkais were cheering as they though they managed to beat the impossible, and us in terror as our trump card defeat, the air felt like it was choking us with the scent of murder. The air was literally filled with that scent that both youkais and us thought that something bad is going to happen. And then, quite suddenly, something exploded. It turns out to be the youkai that manages to land the punch. The girl looks totally pissed off."

"I can imagine that." I muttered as I remembered the rage she had yesterday.

"Several seconds passed in silence as both sides looked in absolute terror. The youkais upper half body is nowhere to be seen except in pieces. And then, another one exploded. And another another one. And so on. The fear she put in the situation makes every youkais run away. However, every youkai that tried to run away will had their legs cut, the one that tries to fly away got their wings or whatever it is they're using cut, and the ones that tried to burrow themselves into the earth is rendered unable to move. And she completed the cycle for that wave in less than three minutes. And then, she punched straight through their chest, abdomen, head, shoulder, and every part that she can penetrate. Some even got kicked. When the next wave arrived, you can just imagine how demoralized they become."

"Considering they see a single girl in black was drenched in blood, with her surroundings full of mangled bodies and holed bodies that loses some part of their joints, with behind her a very scared looking "teammate", I didn't see why not." I commented while crossing my hands in front of my chest. "That's one of the things that totally demoralizes enemy."

Shinki nodded, agreeing with me. "Yeah, they're like frozen in their spot for several seconds, and retreated immediately. She then materialized a scythe, making the stagnant air even more stagnant. She teleported towards the youkais that was the farthest from us, and then body parts started flying. Head, arm, one third of the upper body, even legs went flying. She didn't leave any survivor that day. And considering youkais was still at their strongest, where superstitions are still being heavily believed, well…"

"Yeah, she's in a totally different league." I finished.

Shinki then smiled slightly more generous. "And after one day of slaughtering, Sariel arrived. At first I didn't know why the angel came, but she was told that she had a job to do; which is to stop the rampaging Lily Black." Shinki sighed, rubbing her temple. "She didn't side with either of us, just to stop Lily Black from killing every youkais. I hesitantly agreed, and then she went to find where the girl was. A minute later, the angel crashed to a wall near us, with Lily Black having her knee up to her stomach, which is being protected by her staff."

"The battle went out for hours, and destruction was what was being left by them. Those that are in their way were grateful that they somehow survived, Yuki and Mai being one of them." Mistress winced again. "The battle ended up with a draw, where both of them were already tired looking. And considering that just came was still full of energy when she first arrived, whereas Lily Black was already spending her days knocking out youkais and slaughtering them in the last two days, I can already tell the latter had a totally ridiculous amount of energy to be winded when she was fighting an angel. Sariel was ragged looking, her clothes torn here and there, dirt was practically covering her body, while Lily Black was looking like she wasn't even got hurt, the only evident she was hurt was because she was holding the arm she used to hold her scythe."

"And then, she laughed. Not the kind of mad laughter, just a tired laugh. And then, she lay down on the dirt, before she went to sleep. Sariel smiled at the look, and picked her up, before bringing her to us. We treated her for several days, all of her energy being used probably picking up with her. At that time too, we didn't get attacked anymore. I don't know why, but it's probably because they were too scared with a lot of their waves not coming back. After exactly ten days, she wakes up, and do you know what the first thing she asks?"

"Hmm…" I mused about it for awhile, before I shook my head. "No, I don't."

"Where Sariel is." Shinki told me, and materialized a tea in her hand, before she drank it in one go. All that story telling must've been really thirsty. "I told Yumeko to call her, and when the angel arrived, Lily Black looked at her like she some sort of mother, and then, surprisingly, hugged her, saying thank you repeatedly."

"Well, that sure is surprising." I commented. Who wouldn't, when you went into a devastating battle for hours, you went into a deep sleep after the battle, and then, when you wake up, the first thing you ask is where you're enemy is, and then hugged the enemy, saying thank you towards the enemy. I'm pretty sure everyone will. "And that concludes the story, right?"

Shinki nodded. "Yes, though you might want some more, so I'll continue a bit more about her."

"Go on, then." I told her.

"I decided to ask her how she can kill all those youkais with ease and had a draw with an angel, and she told me she was a fairy that can kill gods, and she preferred evil ones, though she hasn't found any. It was a lie, though, as Sariel shot her a dry look that I noticed, so I kept pestering her with the question. Since she didn't budge and was on the verge of breaking the bed, Sariel told me that she already killed ten evil gods, defeated six normal gods in a fist fight, being a fugitive by the angels for a short amount of time, and then got defeated this Him person. When I shot her a dry look too, She simply crossed her hands and muttered "Information is dangerous if told to the wrong people". Sariel elaborated that she won't tell anyone about that kind of information if she wasn't being pestered long enough, so if I only asked her once, she will lie. And given her overall serious face that time and the fact she didn't have any sort of telling if she's lying or not, it's hard to see her lying."

"Him, huh…" I muttered. She must be talking about God, if Sariel only told the person with Him. "Well whoever this Him is, she knows that info is a dangerous thing. That simply doesn't come out from a normal youkai that likes to boast about everything, let alone from an… ascended fairy."

"Yeah, and you can't believe how she got away with the lying part." Wait, what? "I don't know if she already told you or not, but yesterday, she had a rematch."

"Yeah, I already heard about that part. What's the surprising part?"

"She was scolded only for her superiority complex and how she vents her anger."

"…What? She's not scolded for lying?"

"Yeah, surprising right?" Of course it is. "I asked Sariel after we left the whole lecturing, which takes an incredible nine hours," …wow, that's a really long time for lecturing. "She said that every time she lied about information, this Him person will erase that sin, for what reason Sariel herself don't know. Whoever this Him person was, He must be pretty powerful to be able to erase sins."

…Considering that this Him is probably God, I'm not surprised if He can do that.

"And that concludes the first question." I said, preparing my second question. "Second, is how does my body changes material?" Before she could answer, I pressed on. "I mean, yes, Alex Mercer can change his arms into those sword, blades, or whatever the hell he wants, but to change materials, you need to change the atoms, the components that make the material. You can't just use a virus to change atom, can you?"

Shinki looked reluctant for a second, and then sighed. "Well, to be fair, I made the virus able to change atoms."

Hah, figures.

I sighed, and then continued. "And the virus, you said it had consciousness, but it's not awake now, right? What does it mean?"

"Well, it will eventually wake up, but I think you need some trigger to do it."

"Great, I'm sooo hoping that the trigger will have to do with some explosions and dismemberment." I snarked. "And last question, did this bond, servant master, had a side effect?"

Shinki nodded, and I sighed again. "Well, that's all for now. I need to digest all the information I had gathered now."

"Bye mother." Mistress Mai finally said something as Shinki opened another portal, and disappeared into it. She then glared at me. "Thanks for making me remember that particular event." She said.

"Don't thank me for that, I have a special question for you." I said while leaning back again. She looked shocked, but barely shows it. Barely. "When Yuki reminded you when you know that Lily Black here is observing me, is there any particular reason why? Other than me being watched by her, that is."

She looked at Lily Black, probably thinking if it's a good idea to just say it with the person herself is here. When Black rolled to face me, she continued. "She's… a bit protective about her observation subject."

"And I believe the word "a bit" is putting it lightly." I commented instantly.

"Yes, you are right." She then looked at me. "Whatever you do, Kotomi, don't get in any, and I mean ANY, trouble by some sort of creature or your enemy. If you did though, I just hoped the one that attacked you is strong enough to be a match for her."

"Duly noted." I said. It wouldn't be weird for mistress to worry more about the attacker rather than me. "And does she like, uhh, let go of any threat that she knows?"

"Yes, though the circumstances vary, if she knows, then she'll probably watch first, and then intervene when the situation is too rough. It never ends well every time she intervenes."

I only nodded after hearing it. She already knows that I'm going to be fighting for my dear life a few days later in the future, and that I will be fighting the "big guns", as Black put it, with the yama in charge of the attack, I'm pretty sure it'll be hectic.

And that she knows she can win against them all.

I shuddered involuntarily at the thought. If she's that confident about fighting them all in the future, even if her background is totally full of conflict as far as I know, what with killing evil gods, beating the crap out of normal gods, being chased around by angels, getting her ass handed by God, killed a lot of youkais by herself, and fight a draw to an six winged angel, which is probably one of the strongest angels, she shouldn't be…

Oh God. Oh God.

"Kotomi, what's wrong? You turned white suddenly." My Mistress snapped me from my thoughts.

"N-no, I just realized how screwed up my attacker is in the future…" I replied, and then stand up. "I'm going to take a walk. I need to rest my brain for a while. If she's asking where I go, just tell her that I'm walking around."

She eyed me for a while, and then nodded. I then exited the room, and walked down the corridors. Out in the corner of my eye, I could see a coin glittering beside the railings of a hallway. I decided to pick it up, and looked at it closely.

Hmm hmm, yes, it's a good thing I didn't use the money I brought with me. They're still using old ones, as I already suspected. Well, since this is fifty yen on its own, I decided to make the exact same coins, and nodded as it looked perfect. I even changed my eye into those devices that professionals used to look at the authenticity of a coin which I didn't know what its name to make it perfect.

Satisfied with the result, I continued my walk downstairs, and passed the inn owner.

"Going somewhere, Kotomi-san?" Satomi-san asked me from behind the counter. He was reading a newspaper, but I couldn't make any heads or tails with almost any of the news.

"I'm walking around, familiarizing with the village. And please, just call me casually." I answered, putting the hand that got the two coins into my pocket, and started making five more.

"Have a nice walk then, Kotomi." The old man said, dropping the "–san".

I nodded, and put the two coins of fifty yen on the counter. "That's the tip for earlier. You make some very nice tea, Satomi-san."

He smiled, and nodded. "Thank you." He said.

I smiled back in response, and went out of the inn. The sun immediately pierced my eye, so I shielded my eyes for several seconds to let my eyes adjust to the brightness. Once I got that settled, I started walking around the village.

The village is, for the lack of term, normal. There was some book shops, a tofu shop, a flower shop, several taverns, several weapons shop, a postal service, a school, several shop utilities, some sort of military outpost and barracks, but mostly and not counting the ones in the middle, are houses. The road is pretty crowded too, with people wearing kimonos and yukatas.

And that the people are looking at me while also gossiping about me.

They're only gossiping about my clothing, the gun I brought with me, probably because they're not familiar with it, and lastly, about me massacring those youkais. They're only wondering if I'm the one, though.

-Huaaaah…-

Wow, you can yawn too, Sayaka? I never would've thought about that.

"How's your sleep?" I asked to her, while to everyone, I looked like talking to no one in particular.

-Pretty good master. How's your search for a place to stay? Did it go well?-

"Yes, it went well." I answered. Now people are gossiping about to who I am talking to. They're like children that looked at their parents using phones, really, wondering to who I am talking to. "Anyway, have you somehow figured any way so that I can communicate with you using telepathy?" I asked jokingly.

If she can pout, she'll probably be doing so now. –Yes, I'll do just that if I have a face.-

…Wait, did I just… -Wow! We're now talking telepathically, master!-

I sighed, knowing this be a hassle to work. -Why a hassle?-Because you're just going to… probe… my…

-Master? Something wrong?-

"Yeah." I said. "If this is a permanent effect, then it's not because we're talking telepathically, it's because we're talking using our minds."

-But wouldn't that be good, then?-No, that wouldn't be good at all. Not when I'm thinking something that I want to think for myself. –Oh, master mean privacy?- Yes, that's the name. Wouldn't it be worrying to have someone probing my mind while I'm thinking about something? –Isn't that what a satori's usual thing? Well, they're reading it, though.-

"Yes, that's their usual thing." I said.

-Oh, oh, look, there's one!-

"What, where?!" I scanned the area immediately.

-There! In front of you, master!-

"Where? I don't see any person wearing something not yukatas and kimonos, let alone a third eye." I said, carefully readjusting my eye. It certainly won't do to just let a youkai that can read my mind to be reading my… "Wait, you said in front of me, right?" I asked.

-Mmhmm, in front of you! Right there!- It certainly would be better for you to just be able to point at the spot. –Then I'll do so!-

Without any warning, two magical circles floated in front of me, making me jump in surprise, and from the circle, a hand come out from each circle. One of them was pointing right in front of me, the other one, pointing downwards, towards…

Empty ground. –No, there's a satori right there! Can't you see it, master?- I certainly see air and ground, not a youkai. –Then use your own hand! Ah, she's running away!-

"Where?!" I said rather loudly, surprising every one near me.

-Follow my hands!-

The hand pointed towards a back alley, so I decided to run there. Each time Sayaka pointed somewhere else, I went that way. The back alley was surprisingly long too.

-And dark.- Sayaka added.

"Crap, a T-junction. Which one?" I asked.

-Hmm… Eenie meenie-

"Don't pick the way! You're the one that can see this satori!" I shouted.

"Ihihi, you're funny mister!"

"Hyaa!" I jumped in surprise, and spun one hundred and eighty degree in place when I landed.

In front of me now was a small girl with a grayish green, wavy hair and dark green eyes. She's wearing an orange shirt with diamond-like blue as the buttons and dark green collar with black frills at the edge of the collar and sleeves, a light green skirt with rose motifs, and was also a circular hat with yellow tie surrounding it. She also wears black shoes and socks, but the most prominent part is her purple third eye which is connected to her ankles with heart-shaped buttons, the cord of the third eye is also circling her torso and makes a heart shape at one of the cords.

Though it was a third eye undoubtedly, this one is closed, and her eyes looked like they're staring into… nothing.

"Is something wrong, mister?" The girl asked me suddenly, somehow already mere inches from my face.

"A-ah, yes. I'm just surprised, that's all." I hastily replied while walking back several steps.

-See? There's one!- But there wasn't one earlier. –You just can't see her!-

"Hey, mister, how old is your gun?" Again, somehow, the girl is already near me, though now she was staring at the gun.

"Uh, less than a day?" I answered skeptically.

The girl, for whatever reason, giggled. "No wonder she can see me, my ability still lets children see me, though not any adults."

"…That's not how a satori works." I pointed out.

"But that's how it works for me since I closed my third eye." The girl replied, and then, quite suddenly, she disappeared. "Reading mind is depressing, there's nothing good about it, so I closed my third eye. Now I can go anywhere I want without having to read anyone's mind!" And her voice is already from my back.

"A-ah, that's new information." I said absently.

Now, let me analyze that information. A satori was supposed to read minds, and maybe memories if they can reach deep enough, so if their eyes are closed, they'll lose their ability to read mind.

…Wait, am I forgetting something?

"Wait a minute, how did you know the gun was alive in the first place?" I asked. I better find more about this satori. A trip to one of the bookstores should do. I hope.

"Ihihi, because she got a mind, silly! I can control the subconscious mind, so it's normal for me to know if something is alive!" The girl answered, this time from my side. "What's your name, mister? Maybe we can be friends!"

"K-Kotomi. Kotomi Horikawa."

"Horikawa? That sounds familiar." Huh? "Let me recall it first. I forget things really easily."

-Master, there's someone watching us.-

Huh? From where? I didn't see anyone. –There, from the sky. There's someone watching us!-

I changed my eyes into a binocular towards the sky. The street is narrow, so there's not much area to cover in order to spot the person Sayaka's talking about.

I can still make the description though, the person was a woman with probably tan-colored shoulder-length hair with two blue ribbons tied to its sides and had red eyes. Her clothing was a blue dress composed primarily of blue, which had gold (since it's shining) trimmings, lighter blue shoulders, a brown brick pattern along the hem, and a two angled crosses at the front of the skirt. Below the dress was a white frilly-layered skirt and she also wears brown boots with white socks. The front of her dress contains two white sections, split by a brown and gold (again, shining) belt, with orange and yellow triangular pattern which probably depict the rays of the sun, along with brown buttons lining on the left side of the dress. She also wore a red scarf with a small, yellow sun on the right side around her neck, and she has two white, large feathery wings.

Which means that she's an angel.

Which means I'm going to get my ass handed by that angel, if that shining yellow(which I still suspect is gold) hilt of that sword she's carrying with her is any indication. I just hope she brings it with her every time.

But, first things first: Minimalize casualties and property damage.

"Umm… Uhh…" Crap, I don't know the girl's name yet.

"Yes, mister?" She turned her head towards me.

"Uhh… What's your name?" I decided to be blunt. Sometimes, being blunt is needed.

"I'm Koishi Komeiji." She answered, and turned back again. "Now who had the last name Horikawa…"

"Uhh, I'll be going now, Koishi." I turned around, and walk in a fast pace, trying to find the way out of the alley. I could still heard the shouting of "Bye bye" from the girl.

"Sayaka, keep an eye on that person." I told her.

-Aye, master!-

Now, to find a good spot where there would be little casualties…

This should be a good spot.

* * *

-How's fighting in a forest a good spot?-

Well, first and foremost, little casualties and damage to property. Second, is that there's quite a lot of obstacle to attack, so you have to be careful. And my favorite, there's a lot of place to make ambush.

-Surprising the enemy?-

That's the essence anyway. So where's the an- I mean, person? Is the person still in the sky?

-Well, currently, the person is now coming down here, and pretty fast too.-

Ay, shit.

"Prepare for combat, Sayaka." I told her. Holding Sayaka on my left hand and steeling my free arm, I waited for the telltale sign of leaves being brushed aside.

The waiting wasn't that long until faint sound of leaves being brushed aside and the wind whirling reached my ear from my left, so I whirled around and-

CLANK!

Sword hits steeled arm. The angel looked mildly surprised that I managed to block it using my arm, but if she was thinking what I was thinking, then she would left her surprised state pretty fast.

"Who the hell are you and what the hell do you want?" I asked through gritted teeth. The force the angel was putting was so damn enormous I might as well rip of my leg from the force. Having reinforced my leg for this way earlier sure helps.

"I need not to tell my name to you, you trickster!" She replied while pulling back her sword, and performed a horizontal swing which I dodged by jumping backwards. She swung the sword again, and now I blocked it instead of dodging it.

"I'm not a Goddamn trickster and I'm sure as hell I don't know what the hell you're talking about!" I said loudly while trying my best not to make my arm torn off, and pointed Sayaka towards her. The angel jumped sideways as I opened fire, and I spun in place in order to deflect a swing that would have hit my back.

"You might fool the humans, but you're not fooling me, demon!" She shouted as she jumped back from the deflection. "Since you still have some humanity left within you, I shall purify your soul with my sword!"

I knew it. She thought I was a demon. Oh well, not that it's a completely false statement anyway.

"I have no damn idea what you're talking about." I responded as I changed my steeled hand into a sword. "But if my life is at stake, then I'm willing to fight in order to survive!" I shouted as I jumped towards her, sword-arm at high.

She didn't say anything as she jumped towards me, sword also at high, the sword glowing a faint yellow hue. When both swords clashed, however, something not in my mind happened.

The angel's sword freaking cut through my sword-arm like nothing. And that it hurts like hell.

"GAH!" I cried as I jumped back. Goddamn, I should've known that. Fighting angel isn't exactly going to be walk in the park. "Damnit, I should've known…"

"Just resigned yourself to your fate, and let me purify you." The angel said imperiously, the sword glowing even brighter.

"No, I'm not resigning to my fate!" I shouted as I reformed back my arm. I jumped towards her again, and she shook her head.

"How foolish of you." She declared, and swung her sword diagonally without moving from her spot. A wind gale formed from it, tearing almost everything that's on its path.

Almost.

With fast thinking, I revised my legs from improvised fast-sidestepping to high-jumping. My legs exploded under my command, leaving me high in the sky, the wind gale completely missing me, and I got the advantage of height. It cost me my legs, but hey, as long as it works and I can still regenerate, I'm fine with it.

I readied my sword-arm to strike the angel, using the height and the sun behind me as my cover. This is so that people would usually blind from the sun behind me. Of course it wasn't a foolproof plan, if the enemy is smart enough to make the advantage a disadvantage to you too.

In which the angel totally use it as she reflected back the sunlight, making me effectively blinded.

Thinking quick yet again, I blasted some part of my sides using the same technique as I did for my legs, dodging yet another wind gale that the angel shot towards the air. With the wound regenerating, I charged forward, sword-arm at the ready. The angel got good reflexes though, as she immediately blocked my attack, jumped to the side at my surprise shot, and swung her sword to make another wind gale. I barely dodged it as the wind nicked some part of my arm, but that should be healed within seconds.

I charged again, this time sword at me front, aiming for a stab. It was straightforward though, so the angel sidestepped it easily.

Of course, she wouldn't expect me to just suddenly blow my sides again.

KABOOOM!

"Akh!" The angel somehow managed to put her sword in front of her to decrease the blast damage. It wasn't lethal as I already expected, but it did the job anyway. "You fight underhandedly!" Said the angel angrily.

"In survival, every way to survive is legal, including underhanded ones." I replied nonchalantly, and charged again, this time aiming for a diagonal swing. She dodged backwards while blocking my attack, and dodged again I opened another burst of fire to her.

"Enough." She declared suddenly, sword pulsating with yellow lighting. "I shall end that trickery of yours for good!"

"Oh, releasing your fetters now?" I said mockingly. "I thought that was your best shot."

She didn't let that comment of mine any mind, though, as she decided to attack this time. I dodged to the side as she swung vertically, and swung my own diagonally. Unbelievably, it hit.

…An after image? Wait, when did she-

-Master, behind you!-

Sayaka's word snapped me out of my confusion as I jumped forward instead of turning to face her, and spun to face the angel. She looked impressed, probably because I dodged an unexpected attack. I took the charge this time, leaping towards her. She scoffed. And then, she was gone.

"How foolish of you to think you can win against an angel, you demon." Her voice said from my back, but before I could dodge, a white yellowish beam struck me right at the chest.

"AAAGH!" I screamed as loud as I can, since the beam struck particularly right at my heart. To make matters worse, she also cut both of my arms using that same beam at the very same time. Worst part?

The wound doesn't heal on its own.

"This is the consequence of fighting against an angel, demon." She said as she walked to my front. I was practically gasping for breath, every inch of my body desperately needing the oxygen it needed to work. Sadly though, my heart is out of commission now, blood is practically pouring from three spot, and I'm losing blood really fast. Again. "If only you would let me purify you, this wouldn't have to happen."

"Shut up." I growled, glaring at the angel as she stopped in front of me. She looked both solemn and sad, with her eyes closed, she lifted her sword, and from the hilt of it, out comes a towering beam of light and yellow.

"Oh Father, grant me your power to purify this corrupted lamb, as I shall now purify the poor lamb." She chanted, which I believed isn't how it's supposed to be sounded, probably just my hearing being distorted as my brain starting to malfunction due to the lack of oxygen.

-Master!-

Well, at least I still can hear her sound.

"Huh." I snorted, looking as the beam intensifies. "Well, at least I tried."

The beam swung down towards me, and I only watched helplessly as I barely had the power to even lift my legs. That is, until the beam vanished suddenly, and a crashing sound was heard. Lily Black was already in front of me now.

"Thirty minutes." She said through gritted teeth. "I sleep for thirty minutes and you're already in this state. Are you some kind of freaking trouble magnet?"

"A giant trouble magnet with a paper attached to my back that says "Give me some trouble!"." I replied nonchalantly. "And I'm not trying to be funny about that."

"Can't you just freaking regenerate your wounds? You looked like a freaking blood fountain." She said as she materialized her normal scythe. Weird, I should've passed out now.

-Master, are you okay?!- Sayaka shouted into my mind.

"Of course he is! He just got a flesh wound is all!" A new voice said suddenly out of nowhere.

"Kotomi, who the hell is that?" Black asked suddenly to the new voice. "I can't see any other person here other than you, Sayaka, and that bastard Michel." Ah, I've been fighting Michel? No wonder she's good at fighting, though it's more like doing the same thing over and over again.

"You are so right about the fighting part, mate!" Oh wait, the sound responded to my rambling? "Uh huh." Which means… -Mind invader! Get out of my spot, you freak!- "Hell no, I'm here first then you, girly gun! I'm literally what make his body as he is now!"

"Kotomi, keep that sound silent, would you? I know the sound is coming from you." Black grumbled, still watching a dissipating dust cloud that I just noticed.

"I know, and he literally talks without a Goddarn mouth, how the hell can I keep his sound low?" I shot back at her.

"Lily Black…" The sound of the angel, Michel, came from the dust cloud. "Long time no see."

"Keep the welcoming party for later. You even dare touch him again and I'll swear to God I will do my best to make you suffer, Michel." Black growled. "No, wait, you already hurt him, which means I'm going to maim you for that!" Black appeared right behind Michel, and the latter spun in place to deflect the scythe the former was using.

"You've grown a tiny bit more powerful than our last encounter, Lily." Michel said as she jumped back, before spinning in place in order to parry another attack. "I hope that tiny boost of power will not disappoint me."

"I'll show you that I can win without sucker punching you right at your worthless face!" She shouted as she appeared behind her again, and the latter blocked without even looking to her. "Wrong move, bitch!"

Using her free hand, a dark cloud appeared on it, condensing, and forming a black ball in her hands. Michel, with a shocked look on her face, looked back to Lily Black's shit-eating grin. "N-no way!"

"Surprised, bitch?" She sneered, and flung the ball towards the angel's face at point blank range.

It exploded.

Both combatants jumped out from the black cloud formed by the explosion, Black looked still fine, and the same could also be said to the angel, but she had a shocked look on her face.

"You… how…" Michel said in a disbelieving tone, pointing her finger towards another black "ball" that Lily Black just made.

"Easy. Sap some of my power, form into a ball, and voila! Instant bomb that shrugs off every attempt to nullify it and avoid it! Neat, huh? I bet you're shocked." Black said, still with her shit-eating grin.

"I can't believe it… You're actually able to use it…" Michel said, her face turning white, but it regained color again. She inhaled a good long breath, and let it out. By the time she let it out however, another bomb collided with her face, promptly sending her back as she was flung by the force of the explosion.

"And up we go!" The new voice suddenly said as my body involuntarily moved on it own. My hole in the chest is now gone, but I still haven't got my arm yet. "It's a total work to try and get around the angel's power, but nevertheless, I made it through! You better thank me for that, mate."

"Who are you?" I asked eyeing at my own body. "And yeah, thanks for that."

"No biggie, and I'm Broadlight, your whole entire body made into flesh! I was waiting for a good moment to wake up, and the first thing I have to do was to freaking repair your wound. And that angel totally woke me up from my sleep, and she must pay for that." The new voice, now identified as the virus Broadlight, answered. "And you must know that I'm currently taking over your body aside from the face area, so you can enjoy the first class view of my extreme battle prowess!"

-Master? Who's Broadlight?- Sayaka asked.

"Ahahaha, who am I? I'm a part of your master's body, soul, and mind, that's who I am." He… It said as my body ducked down to let some tendrils reattach my arms. When it was attached, he (I'll just settle with that) flexed it for awhile. "Now, Kotomi, pay attention to how you should use have used my power!"

My hand from below the elbow and around the back started writhing as tendrils started coiling on top of said area, and then my lower arm turned into steel, started elongating through the elbow, forming a gun that I don't really recognize since it's way too long, but it had to be a cannon if it was that big and the size of the ammo was way really big, according to the shadows.

"Rule number one: Be creative about it! And don't just do half assed work like using two arms to make a 150mm artillery cannon! If you're as good as me, you can dual wield that 150mm and make it a semi-automatic cannon!" Broadlight shouted. Wait, dual wielding one hundred and fifty millimeter cannon? You're shitting me. "Not literally, but yeah, you can dual wield 150mm cannons, even up to 200mm cannon! You just had to make your leg super hard so that you can do it. In fact, I'll show you just that!" I could feel the cannon and the ammo both changing size.

"Now, Rule number two: Always make tons of plans ahead, in order to anticipate your enemy!" My body whirled around to watch the fight again, with Black storming the place with her makeshift bombs, and Michel swatting every single one that she could. She, however, was failing to win. "Number three:" Both my arm moved upwards, the cannon tip pointing towards. "Take your enemy completely by surprise!"

**DOR!**

The sound literally exploded my eardrums as the twenty centimeter cannons fired, deafening my hearing system. I could barely even hear hitting sound as the ground exploded a good (probably) twenty meters into the air.

"KOTOMI!" I could still hear Black shouting's though. Damn, she must be pissed off ri-"That's awesome! Do it more!"

"That's all courtesy of me, black girl!" A blurry sounded Broadlight said, and another ear exploding sound rocked my ears.

-Master! The explosion makes an earthquake!- Sayaka shouted in my mind.

"I know! Where are you anyway?!" I said, looking around.

-Uhh… Master, I'm on your back. You didn't notice me when you picked me up?-

"I noticed you, but I just had my mind somewhere earlier." Broadlight butted in. "Confusing?"

-…Yes.-

"Good, because your master is I and I is your master's body, which makes me your master!"

Stop playing troll logic. God, I hate those things. –I agree. My mind is spinning now…- "Hahahaha! Just keep thinking, just keep thinking."

"Are you forgetting me, demon?" Michel's voice sounded from our back, and she sounds pissed off.

"Nope!" Some part of my back, probably the ammo, exploded. I actually had to break my neck so that I can see that happening. She got a face full of twenty centimeters gun pow-"HE shells!" … That's even worse. "Good for trolling though, hahahahaha!"

"Keep kicking that angel's ass, virus!" Lily Black cheered from behind (my head).

"Gladly!" was Broadlight's answer before Michel slammed her body towards my body, sword stabbing my chest, exactly where the heart was supposed to be. "Haha! Got you!"

Another writhing and the giant gun were now sticking out blades. And then, with one diagonally pointing up, the other one down, he smacked the gun to our body, which would be painful, but instead, it hit** MICHEL, **which is basically in front of my body. The poor angel was screaming in agony as Broadlight mercilessly smacked the gun repeatedly over and over again, using one at a time.

-Are you sympathizing her, master? She nearly killed you earlier! You should be happy!-

"Yeah! As long as your body is under my control, it's not like you're the one doing it, so don't feel guilty about it and watch in delight instead!"

Lily Black was only guffawing on the ground, rolling around with her hands up her stomach when I stole a look towards her.

Guess I'm the only one that still had some good heart, then.

"Broadlight, stop." I said firmly.

"Aww, come on, you're not feeling bad for her, ain't ya?" Broadlight asked, but he did stop. The angel dropped down in front of us, kneeing, panting heavily. Broadlight then smacked her with the gun to the ground, this time making the angel pass out. "Yeah, now I'm done."

"Wow, the angel's a total mess. I'm not sure if I should be happy or feeling totally bad for her now." I muttered as I looked at the angel's overall look. Her dress is ragged, torn, and burned, with dirt, blood, and moot covering her skin and dress and her white wings are unscathed, somehow.

-Well, now that I looked at her, I feel totally bad for telling you to be happy, master…-

Well, someone agreed with me, at least.

"Oh God, she totally didn't see that coming." Black's voice reached my ear as she landed one hand onto one of my shoulder. That's when I noticed my arm had been back to normal too. "Looks like all the explosions she took weakened her enough to get physical damage by you."

"What do you mean by that?" I asked, scratching my head.

"Well, angels wouldn't felt physical damage when they're not badly damaged enough, usually demons are the one that can do just that. But, considering that you're a third human, a third virus, AND a third demon, I guess that makes her can take physical damage from you too." She answered as she formed another black ball. "I'm now in love with explosions. I'm just going to spam these to any angel I fight later on. The shocked face on her face is priceless."

"Yeah yeah, can we move on now? Broadlight asked, using one of my arms to be rested on my hip. "Are we just going to sit here and talk like this?"

"No, and I'm planning to go meet Shinki again. See you later, guys." She said before she disappeared into thin air.

-Master, let's bring her and tend her wounds.- Sayaka said suddenly.

"What?! Hell no! I say we leave her here and let her rot! That's way better!" Broadlight shouted before I can even think about the first one.

-No! She's still alive and she should be tended!- She shouted back.

"She's a damn angel, for God's sake! She'll life for the next day and she'll be ready to start kicking again tomorrow anyway!"

-That's no reason to just leave her here!-

"Yada yada yada! Say, partner, what's your opinion?" He asked me suddenly. "Are you following the naïve gun's way or my way?"

"I'm following my own way." I answered instantly. "I'll tend her wounds,"

"Uugh, playing the nice guy's game. Fine, I'm just going to follow you."

"I'm not finished yet." I rolled my eyes. I dropped down and lifted the angel up. She's not quite heavy, or maybe that's just me being rather strong.

"I prefer the latter."

-So, what's the continuation?-

"I'm going to suck information I can from her. Through torture if I must to." Broadlight guffawed at that. "Something about earlier bugs me, and I'm going to know about it."

"Using your defeated opponent as a cheap way for information, who would've thought that you'll be that cold! Hahahahaha!" Broadlight commented again. "But that works for me. Half for her, half for me, and all for you. Good work, mate."

A smile escaped my lips. "Thanks, though it's only courtesy of being in the military that you have to get every information you can about your enemy no matter how with minimized casualties and property damage, especially not to damage the intel."

-Well, let's go home and tend her, then!-

"And then torture the hell out of her, hahahahaha!"

I smiled even wider as the enthusiastic comment was made. One was for the good, one was for the bad, while I was for both. Information is that kind of weapon that can backstab anyone, after all. Lily Black is included, if I'll have to confront her berserk mode in the future. And this angel is the key for that information regarding about her ability, if her shocked expression when she noticed that Black was using the black "ball" of hers.

Information is the most dangerous kind of weapon after all, in my opinion.

* * *

Author's note : ...And I found nothing on this Destiny person. Damn it.

Anyway, since I'm a third done with my next chapter, I should be able to update faster (Given my connection doesn't screw up. I totally hope not.), just keep your fingers crossed, though. On the next chapter, as a warning, I make one of the most ridiculous thing my mind have ever think of, Lily Black tasting the power of a powerful acid and the consequences of using the "bombs", and Kotomi prying information from Michel.

See you guys on the next chapter. Hybrid 1945, signing out!

Next Chapter : Versatility, Power, and Information


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